


The Evolution of Humanity

by Mutant_Toad



Category: Hellboy (Comics), Hellboy (Movies), Hellboy - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Frog Monsters, Mercreatures, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 00:25:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1245817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mutant_Toad/pseuds/Mutant_Toad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The B.P.R.D. has lost two of it's agents, Hellboy and Liz Sherman. Initially, Abraham Sapien and Johann Kraus had quit as well, but have since come back to continue the fights against the creatures of the world that threaten humanity. In the back of his mind, Abe continues to hope that one day he will find another of his species or to know if he is the last. It frustrates him that he can know everything about anything and anyone, but not himself. He wonders how long it will take before humanity decides they do not want the protection of freaks. When that happens, where will he go?</p>
<p>**Takes place in a mix of the movies and the comics in both storyline and character abilities.**</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Appologies to those that have read this first chapter. I had issues with my laptop, Google Docs, and AO3 all not wanting to communicate properly and it ended up with some wonky formatting. Thanks to a friend, it has now (hopefully) been completely corrected.

“The books in here are old and rare, please try not to get salt water on them. It is hard to clean up,” the German man scolded several men who were dragging a long, thick hose into the library. They hefted it up and over the edge of what appeared to be a large fish tank.

It was the second tank in the room, except this one was not as elegant as the one built into the furthest wall. It was more like a standard fish bowl blown up to mammoth proportions. Silicone sealing in each corner. Thick, clear glass. No decorations or detailing. Meanwhile, the other tank had beautiful metal carvings and the water appeared to be the brightest blue color.

“Johann, is something wrong with my tank?” the smooth voice came from the doorway as the fishman walked in. He was dressed as he usually was; nearly naked with the exception of a pair of black swimming shorts and a belt with various little pouches around it. The exposed parts of his body were obviously humanoid in features, but there was little doubt that he wasn’t human.

From his webbed feet, to the green-blue color of his wet looking skin, to the fins on his arms, and up to the gills on his neck. It was painfully obvious that this creature was not truly human, “Oh no, Abe, nothing is wrong with it. Just setting up a temporary home for someone.”

“Did they find another mermaid? The last one was rather violent. Claimed that she needed to cut off Hellboy’s right hand and send his body parts off to the various witches of the world to prevent the apocalypse,” it was the tone of his voice that said he was saying it light heartedly. Due to his facial structure, it would be impossible for the lipless fishman to smile.

“I promise this one is not like that. That is why we are putting her in here. She appears very docile and I thought that this would be a better surrounding for her than the lab rooms. I think the proximity to another water based entity such as yourself will be good for her, at least till she is moved to the facility in the north,” this building could only handle one tank of Abe’s size. It would be hard to manage the care of two of them.

“That seems logical,” the blue man said with a slight nod, “What species does she take after? Is she like the ones we met up in the New York Harbor?” those had been rather ghastly, “Or more like the ones near Europe?” which had been much more pleasing to look at, but were awfully vicious and fed on humans that swam into their territory.

“Not sure on species yet. She was found in the Antarctic. Hard to imagine something like that could survive there. I do not believe she was native to the area though. She was in a near death state when they pulled her aboard. We think she may have followed a food source to the area and then became trapped by the ice.”

“Interesting. Will she be here for long?” Abe was always interested in meeting other sea creatures like himself, but thus far they had all been rather beast like and violent. It was pleasing to hear that there might be a more civilized species out there.

“The ship carrying her needs to refuel and restock. They could do it elsewhere, but then they run the risk of their cargo being found out. We're the safest location to the docks to house her. I expect the crew members will like some time off. So long as she seems settled and her health remains stable, she could be here for up to as month. I do not see a reason for any longer than that.”

“It'll be nice to have the company,” the blue man said with a nod as he headed over to one of the bookshelves. It had been quiet here since the Golden Army incident. Both Liz and Hellboy had left the B.P.R.D.. Both Johann and himself had considered doing the same, but for the time being had chosen to stay.

“Quiet company,” the ectoplasm man stated, “From the current reports, despite her health seeming to return, she has yet to speak a word. They are not sure she can speak and human language at this time.

“Oh...” Abe seemed to shrug it off. It would still be nice to have someone new around for a little while.

“She does appear intelligent though. While she does not seem to speak it, she seems to respond well to a number of languages. She also responds to picture cards. When shown pictures of fish, she points to the open ocean and to her mouth. Indicating she knows where they live and what she eats.”

“That's promising,” he nodded again, “When is she scheduled to arrive?”

“She shall be in the tank midnight,” of course it made more sense to move something like that at night. Less chance of being seen by anyone. Just because the B.P.R.D. was now public knowledge didn't mean they needed everything they did made known. Hellboy, Abe, and Liz were one thing; but most knew if knowledge of some of the creatures they dealt with was made known that the public would panic. As for mermaids, they would start to seek them out and the B.P.R.D. was not ready to deal with the massive killings of both humans and mermaids once humans realized how dangerous most species really were.

“I shall see her in the morning then. It's been a long day,” just because he was happy to meet a docile mermaid didn't mean he had any reason to stay up to meet her. He'd seen several dozen during his time here and saw no reason to give one that would be here such a short time any special thought.

“Sleep well, Mr. Sapien,” even as friends, Johann still gave formalities such as that once in a while.

The fish man climbed the ladder into his own tank and slipped into the cool, blue water. He watched for a few minutes as the workers finished up the secondary tank before swimming towards a darkened corner near the back and settling down into it. Hellboy used to ask how he could find sleeping like that comfortable. Abe wished he could explain how it worked, but without the big red ape being able to do it, it was impossible to explain.

The merman was fast asleep when the boat crew came in with Johann. They worked quickly to get the mermaid into the tank. They'd been pouring buckets of sea water on her since they got off the boat and the whole ride to the facility. To a degree, she seemed able to breath outside of the water, but it was labored breathing, as if it were a last resort for her body.

“What happened to her tail?” Johann snapped out as the men carried her in wrapped up in one of those stretchers that large fish are seen carried in sometimes. Her tail was flopped out one end of it, not moving. The scales were dark blue and the scaling was much like that of the African Cichlid. Tiny, little rows of blue scales. Thousands of them. Fanning out at the end to form her large tail fins. It stretched out all the way to the floor from the shoulder height of the men carrying her. Fanned out much like a Siamese Fighting Fish.

“We ran out of sea water and thought it would be alright to put bottle water on her. We didn't know it would do that to her. I've never seen any fish have that kind of reaction,” one of the men stated as Johann leaned in to inspect one of the offending spots. There were water line marks of marred scales and bits of blood leaking through where the bottled water had touched her, “Moment we saw it, we stopped. I swear. We were just trying to keep her wet. None of the other mermaids did that.”

“Never mind. For now, get her in the water. We will deal with repairing her tail once she has settled a little. How long till the sedative wears off?”

“She'll be out till at least noon. We weren't sure how much to give her. Her body seems to process it differently.”

“And you call yourselves scientists,” the German phantom scolded, “Get her in the water,” he ordered again. It took a few heavy grunts for them to lift her over the edge, “Careful. Do not just drop her in. Lower her in as gently as you can,” Johann ordered as the men struggled not to just drop the heavy cargo into the water, “I said gently!” he snapped as the stretcher slipped and her whole body was dumped into the tank.

“Sorry, Sir, but it's not like this is easy. It would have been better for her to be in the lab where we have a platform.”

“Do not make excuses for your incompetence and ability to manage, Captain. What is done is done. Best to let her rest. We have an agent in the room who can respond to any emergencies should there be one,” the two of them argued all the way out of the room.

The library light flicked itself off after an hour or so. Leaving Abe's semi-lit tank as the only light in the room. Her body sank slowly to the bottom of the tank, making a muffled 'thud' as it reached the floor. She spread out against it. Her tail fin spreading out and floating a bit near the tips. Floating around in the clear water like a curtain in the wind. Small streams of bright red blood drifted up from her new wounds, but they soon stopped.

It was hard to see what she looked like in the dark, but occasionally, the water would ripple around her fluttering fins and bounce the light from Abe's tank around. The scales stopped, for the most part, mid-way up her abdomen. The blue faded into a more icy blue coloring on her chest, arms, neck, and face. There were small spotting of the blue scales over her torso, but for the most part it was silky, wet skin like the underbelly of a fish. Her arms seemed longer than they should have been. Shorter fins, but similar to her tail fin, stuck out from the sides of her arms. They lead down to her long, bony fingers and sharp, little, claw-like nails.

Unlike other species that had been pulled up, she lacked most humanoid features that they had. Most were basically human women cut in half with a fish tail. However, she was more fish featured than them.

Not being a mammal and having no need for them, she lacked breasts. The other human feature she lacked that most other mermaids had was hair. There were no flowing locks floating around her head in the water. Instead, her head was smooth and covered with black markings similar to Abe's. The bridge of her nose was flattened out and melded in with her cheeks, causing it to look as if she had no nose when looking from straight ahead.

Her face was very angular. Pointed and sharp. High cheek bones and a narrow jaw. By human standards, it wasn't very attractive, but it all flowed together with the rest of her body. Her mouth opened slightly as she squirmed on the bottom of the tank once in a while, revealing her sharp, tiny teeth. They were likely used for ripping through the thick skin and scales of other ocean creatures.

The gills on the sides of her neck moved a bit as she slept, the drugs keeping her under for the time being. They were slowly wearing off and she peeked her eyes open every now and then. She couldn't really see anything except a blue glow coming from the other side of the room that she couldn't quite make out in her drugged haze.

By the time the sun was up outside, she was swimming small circles in her tank. Going fast enough at times to make a small whirlpool in the middle. She only stopped when the room suddenly became bright as the lights flicked on. She shrank down to the bottom of the tank quickly and flattened herself out against it.

“Ah, good, you are awake. I knew they were wrong when they said you would be out till noon. You're quite the lively one,” Johann spoke to her as he walked in. His metal suit creaking and making noises that she wasn't used to as he got near, “I am Dr. Johann Kraus,” as he spoke, she slowly rose up towards the top of the tank and poked her head from the water. She kept just enough under to cover her gills. Her webbed and clawed fingers slid over the edge as she looked down at him, “If you are unable to speak, I ask that you find some way to appropriately respond to me. Simplest way to do that is to blink once for no and twice for yes. Do you understand?”

There was a long pause before she did anything, as if she were studying him. The sailors had stated she'd stared at them for long periods of time as well. Finally, though, she blinked twice. Much like Abe, her eyelids came from side to side rather than top to bottom.

“Very good. Again, I'm Dr. Kraus. Do you have a name?” her tail fin swished around a little before bumping the side of the tank with a thud that echoed through the room before blinking twice, “Very good. We shall figure out a way for you to communicate it with me. Do you eat fish?” she banged her tail again before blinking twice, “What about vegetation, do you eat that as well?” again, she blinked twice, but without the tail banging, “Is the water that you come from normally warm?” she blinked once, “Is it cold?” she blinked twice, “As cold as the water you were found in,” one blink this time, “More mild in temperature then?” two blinks, “Very good. This will help us in being able to feed you properly. If you were shown a map, could you point out where you are from?” she blinked twice, “Excellent.”

Her huge, almond shaped, black eyes darted behind him and she let out a low hissing noise before sinking back into the water and settling down against the floor. Her teeth were bared and her fingers extended to show off her claws, “Oh dear, what is wrong?” the ectoplasm man asked, but his answer came from behind him as Abe cleared his throat.

“I don't think she likes me, which is highly unfair since she knows nothing about me,” the fishman was stepping off the ladder from his tank and making his way over to Dr. Kraus. Her big eyes didn't leave him for a second and she didn't let up on her defensive position. He got close to the tank and crouched down to get more leveled with her, “My name is Abraham Sapien. I believe we have quite a bit in common,” he looked up at Johann, “I've never seen a mermaid like this before.”

“Nor have I, Abraham. The reports said she was similar to you in markings, but the physical traits are more similar than I was expecting. If she is not Icthyo sapiens like yourself, then I expect she is a close relative to it. I suppose while she is here, it would not hurt to do a little genetic testing to find out.”

“I would appreciate that, Johann,” he stared back into the tank with his own big eyes and watched as she pushed herself as far as she could into the corner, “I don't think she's seen many like me. It's strange that she would be so calm with humans, but so defensive towards me.”

“Perhaps humans have never shown aggression towards her before, but others of your kind have. It is not terribly uncommon for the females of a species to be rather meek and the males to be highly aggressive towards them and each other. Perhaps she is unready to be mated and fears that you will try to do so.”

“Oh dear, I hope not. If you can understand me, then I hope that you believe me when I say that I have no intentions of that,” a muffled, but audible, growl came from inside the tank, “It's strange, I can know everything about anything, but I do not know anything about myself before being waken by the B.P.R.D.. I wonder if I was placed in that tank by humans who found me like she was.”

“You could use your ability to see into her mind and find out if there are others. Perhaps she is so defensive because you two met before in the wild and the interaction did not go well?”

“Possibly, but I don't think going into her head so soon after meeting and with such aggression from her would be polite. It's possible she can do the same to us. Best to let her rest a bit before starting any kind of testing, she's had a long trip after all. If you don't mind, I would like to continue talking to her. Maybe if I'm the only one around for her to respond to, she might start to relax. You were mentioning a map when I woke up?”

“Yes,” the man's suit hissed as he moved towards the books, “She seems able to understand us well enough and able to respond in basic ways. I was going to show her a map and see if she could point out where she is from,” he grabbed a canister and pulled a translucent map from it. Probably normally used for projectors.

“If she knows maps and landmasses, then she must have come into contact with humans before,” he took the map from the other man and scanned it, “Where was she found?” the doctor pointed out a section of Antarctica, “There was a break in the ice near the coast and they found her in an ice lake. Like I said last night, she was nearly dead when they found her.”

They both jumped a little at the loud banging sound and looked up to see her slamming her massive tail down on the floor of the tank, “I do not think she likes us speaking about her instead of to her. I'll leave you to speak with her, let me know her responses.”

“Of course,” he stood up as the ectoplasm man left them alone, “Let me introduce myself again, we apparently got off on the wrong fin. My name is Abraham Sapien. I live in there,” he pointed to the other tank, “Like yourself, I'm a water based creature, except I have legs instead of a tail like you. You're quite remarkable.”

Despite her apparent anger towards him, she seemed to understand and bobbed her head a little at the compliment.

“I believe Dr. Kraus was using a blinking system for your responses? Once for no, twice for yes?” she blinked twice, “Good. I'm going to show you a map. If anything looks familiar to where you come from, point to it. If it looks familiar, but you are not from there, then tap the glass. Understand?” she blinked twice in response, “Good. Here we go,” he lifted the map up and held it against the tank.

Slowly, she moved towards the glass, her eyes on him as she did so. As if she were expecting him to break through the glass and hurt her or something, she kept her teeth bared in a defensive stance. It took her a few moments to move her large eyes from him to the map. She scanned it slowly before reaching a clawed finger up and tapping on the map near South Africa, “South Africa. There are other mermaids near there. More shark like ones,” she blinked twice, “You encountered them?” she blinked twice again, “Were they aggressive?” she didn't blink, instead, she nodded her head quickly and her tail swished around enough to cause water to slosh over the top of the tank, “No need to get worked up about them. They aren't here. Does anywhere else look familiar?”

She returned her eyes to the map and tapped again, “Off the west coast of northern India. That's a fairly long way from the Antarctic. Anywhere else?” she proceeded to tap more locations. One off the coast of Spain. One off the coast of New York, which surprised him the most that she had been near here before. One off the coast of Argentina. Another more northern in Antarctica. One in the middle of the South Pacific. Four in the North Pacific. One off the coast of Australia. Two between New Guinea and Indonesia. And, finally, two more in the Indian Ocean, “You certainly have traveled a lot and remember such good locations. Do you know where you were born?”

She blinked twice before pressing her finger to the glass, “Nantes, France,” he pulled the map away and held it down for a moment as he looked up at the ceiling in thought, “That sounds so familiar. It is a seaport area, that connects to the ocean, so it's not unlikely. But...what is it...”

She seemed to lose interest and went back to swimming in circles and creating little whirlpools. Whatever he was going on about didn't seem to matter to her. At least it didn't till he shouted a name, “Jules Verne! Those are the locations in his book Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Each spot you touched is one mentioned in the book. There have always been rumors that his stories, to some degree, were true. Verne was born in Nantes, France. He followed you, didn't he?” she blinked twice, “My god, that's...” he seemed a loss for words, “You were Nemo,” at least in a symbolic sense, “Just...incredible. I have to tell Dr. Kraus.”

He moved quickly, but she started banging her fists against the glass and pounding her tail on the floor, “What's wrong? Do you not want me to tell him?” she shook her head violently, “Why not? I don't understand.”

She surfaced the water quickly, leaning over the side of the tank as much as she could, forcing her body to use her lungs like a human instead of her gills. She reached a clawed, webbed hand out for him. The palm of her hand was like his. It was pale in color, but there were reddish, circular marks that looked almost like suction cups, “If I touch your hand, I will see things about you. I'll be able to see anything I want, as far back as I want. Depending on what I see, I may still need to tell the others. You understand that, right?”

She blink twice.

“Very well...” he'd hoped not to do this unless it was necessary or at least not till they knew more about her.

Feelings aside, he reached out and clasped her hand with his own.


	2. Chapter 2

_The sign being held by an ornate stand outside the ballroom was handwritten. It read: Happy Birthday to Fontanne Beaulieu. May the next eighteen be as wonderful as the first. -June 25, 1846_

_It was informal and uncommon and there were several quiet comments about it by those that disapproved, but were still wanting to attend. Many disapproved of the way the Beaulieu’s raised the girl, but it wasn’t for them to say out loud. The family had always been a strange one. Some rumors claimed that the family money came from witches. Others claimed that Fontanne was conceived by her mother consorting with demons. Others stated that it was her father who allowed the demons to impregnate his wife. And still others claimed that they were just an odd sort that wished for such fantasies in their lives._

_Whatever it was, the Beaulieu’s had money and no one would dare risk not being invited to their only child’s birthday celebration. There was music, dancing, food, and wonderful chances to network. And no matter how she was born, there was the fact that Fontanne was of marrying age in her father’s eye. He always boasted that his daughter would not be courted till she was eighteen. No matter how strange the family, there was no denying the greed in the hearts of many._

_There weren’t many her age in the large ballroom. It was mostly adults twice her age. It would be unseemly for too many children to be running about. They were home with the nannies. It would also be unseemly for the guest of honor to be roaming around enjoying herself and risk her guests not being able to find her; and so, Fontanne Beaulieu was sitting at the head table, being doted on by various family members and family friends._

_Her chair was draped with a soft pick cloth that matched the pink satin ribbon wrapped around her waist and bowed in the back. It sat nicely with the bleach white dress she was wearing. It reached down to her feet and pooled on the floor. Her mother always told her that it was best to wear white whenever possible, all because it showed dirt easily. If you could see dirt, then it meant you were doing something wrong. Being clean was the most important thing to her mother. Always be clean._

_That was why her sink always seemed a little pink. At least four times a day, she sat in a tub of hot salt water and scrubbed herself till she was as clean as her mother felt appropriate. She always had to wash with sea water. It was just a rule her mother had. Her father wasn’t much better. So hell bent on being clean. Outside of that, they were very strange people. They didn’t care who she spoke with or what she did, just so long as she stayed clean. They never told her she had to be married and she never told her that she to take a certain job. All she had to do to keep them happy was stay clean. Not a spot on her white dress._

_Tonight was no exception._

_“Fontanne, you’ve grown into such a beautiful lady. Your parents must be so proud,” her great-aunt doted._

_“I’m sure they are,” she said back with a soft smile._

_“I would like you to meet someone, Darling. The son of a family friend on my husband’s side. He’s your age,” which meant it was a set up of some sort, “He’s a promising young man and tells the most wonderful stories,” before she could decline, the woman was already calling for him, “Jules. Jules, come meet Fontanne.”_

_He was a kind looking man. Soft, dark eyes that seemed to smile even when he wasn’t. A little heavy in weight for his age, but tall as well. He smiled lightly as he came closer, holding a rather small box in his hands. He set it on the table in front of her, “For the birthday lady. Thank you for allowing me to come, Miss. Beaulieu. The party is lovely.”_

_“Thank you, Mr…” she had only heard his first name._

_“Verne. Jules Verne,” he smiled again, “Your Aunt has told me that you enjoy the ocean quite a bit, so I do hope my gift is appropriate,” just because he didn’t know her before now didn’t mean he could come without a gift. It was always polite to bring a gift._

_She reached out and took the box, pulling away the soft pink ribbon holding it closed. She smiled lightly at what was inside. It was a simple pearl necklace. Just a silver chain with two small pearls strung in place and a third, slightly larger one, dangling between them, “It’s beautiful, Mr. Verne.”_

_“Please call me Jules,” he said with a smile, “May I?” he gestured his hands out to take the necklace._

_“Of course,” she handed it to him and lifted her hair up as he walked behind her and slipped it around her neck._

_“I shall leave you two young people to yourselves then,” her aunt stated before climbing up from her chair. Fontanne wasn’t sad to see her go. She loved her family, but they frustrated her._

_“Do you mind if I sit with you? There aren’t many people here my age to speak with,” to which he was right. She had asked her mother and father if her friends from school could come, but they stated that as an adult, she needed to branch out to other adults. It seemed that Jules was to be the only one even close to her age here._

_“Of course not. I hate to say it, but I feel rather out of place at my own party. My mother and father said I needed to outgrow my childhood friends.”_

_“That’s terrible, but I’m sure they mean well,” he stated as he replaced her aunt, “At least the food and drink are pleasant.”_

_“Good food is always pleasant,” she chuckled softly._

_“So is good conversation.”_

_“Agreed.”_

**”I’m sorry, Miss, but I don’t understand,” Abe’s voice rang out of the darkness and he felt her slick hand grip his harder.**

_She laughed loudly and held her stomach a little, “Mr. Jules, I can’t believe I let you convince me to leave my own party. My mother is going to be so sore with me when she realizes I left.”_

_“Life, my dear Miss. Fontanne, is made up of mistakes. Mistakes which are useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth,” he said with a smile as he took her hand and continued to lead her towards the docks._

_“That makes no sense,” she admitted._

_“It doesn’t have to,” he teased, “Close your eyes, Miss. Fontanne. I want to show you something,” she did as she was told and closed her eyes. She smiled lightly as she felt his hands cover her eyes and he carefully lead her, “The sea is everything. It’s breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion. The sea provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to it. The surface of the sea is where men wage their wars, but under the surface, down there, it is calm and peace that is unmolested by man. Nature manifests herself in the sea. Her three kingdoms of mineral, vegetable, and animal; the sea is the vast reservoir of Nature.”_

_“Mr. Jules…” she started, but he shushed her softly before continuing._

_“In the presence of Nature’s grand convulsions man is powerless. Do you agree, Miss. Fontanne.”_

_“Yes,” she said softly as she tried to listen. She could hear the waves of the sea port and smiled a little. It was all a little romantic._

_“The Sea is calling her children back to her…” he said softly in her ear before kissing the side of her head. She wasn’t sure what to do with herself, but the overwhelming urge to turn in his arms and kiss him was strong. Her heart pound hard in her chest as she started to do just that. Yet instead of connecting with him, she felt his hands move quickly from her eyes and to her lower back. With a hard push, he sent her toppling off the edge of the dock and into the cold sea water below._

_She panicked for a moment and flailed about as the salt water stung her eyes and she came to the surface gasping for breath, “Fils de salope!” she shouted as a splash to the water came from near by._

_“Such vulgar language for a lady,” he teased._

_“Je m’en fou!” she snapped as she looked around for him. She could feel the water current pulling her slipper shoes off, “My mother is going to have your head._

_“Very well, if we’re going to be vulgar...nique ta mere,” he said with a smirk and she gasped, “No worse than what you said.”_

_“I didn’t mention your mother,” she growled as she started to swim towards the shore._

_“Miss. Fontanne, please, swim with me,” he requested._

_“You’ve ruined my dress, my shoes are gone, and my mother is going to kill us both. I should think it would be best to leave now.”_

_“The future is but the present a little farther on. Will she be anymore sore with you later then she will be now?”_

_She stopped and thought for a moment. He was right. She was going to be angry with her daughter either way. Even though the water was cold, it felt nice. She loved the smell of it. Her mother said she’d been born on a ship and that was why she was so comfortable around the waves, “I suppose not. You are a terrible influence, Mr. Jules,” she wanted to make sure he knew that._

_“You bring it out in me, Miss. Fontanne,” he swam over and slipped his arms around her waist below the water, “You may think me insane for saying this, but I do believe I’m in love with you.”_

_Even in the cold water, she felt herself heat up with embarrassment at the statement, “You can’t love someone you just met, Mr. Jules.”_

_“And why not? Did you not love the sea the moment you saw it? Did you not love your parents the moment you saw them? Did you not love the first book you read by the first sentence? Did you not love your favorite food by tasting it just once? Did you not love the necklace I gave to you the moment you saw it? Why can people love those things on sight, but not lover? Love is like water. Wherever there is a passage, be it only a fraction of time, it will penetrate and modify the conditions of the mind.”_

_“That’s beautiful, Mr. Jules.”_

**”While this is all very interesting from a historical standpoint, I see no reason not to tell Dr. Kraus what I have learned of you,” it was Abe’s voice interrupting the fuzzy memories once again.**

_”I’m cold, Mr. Jules. We should head back now,” she started towards the shore again. They had been in the sea water for nearly an hour and her toes were starting to feel numb. Even in the summer, the night water was cold._

_“Wait…” he reached out and pulled her back to press against his chest. He felt frozen, but it still felt nice, “I meant what I said. I do believe I love you, Fontanne,” he left off the ‘miss’ for the first time since their meeting just a few hours ago, “Do you feel the same way? If you say no, I will never mention it again.”_

_She was unsure of how to respond. Words did not come as easily or beautifully to her as they seemed to come to him. He was a poet with a beautiful soul. She found it so hard to believe that someone like him would admit love to her. She knew so little about him. All he wanted to talk about was her. Could she love someone she knew nothing about other than that he could speak lovely words? Surprisingly enough to herself, she could, “Yes.”_

_“Show me.”_

**“I don’t think this is appropriate for me to be seeing. The love life of Jules Verne, while interesting, really has no bearings on anything...owww, no need to scratch. I’m still watching and listening,” Abe piped in again.**

_“I did as you asked, Mr. Beaulieu.”_

_“Everything?”_

_“Yes, Sir,” Jules looked down at the floor as the tall man in front of him smiled, “I feel bad about it. She’s a sweet girl.”_

_“The less you think about it, the easier it will be. That’s what I keep telling her mother. You gave her the necklace, right?”_

_“Yes. I told you, I did everything. How long will it take? Master wants to know when he can come collect her.”_

_“She’ll be ready by morning.”_

_“Ready for what?” both men jumped a little as she rounded the corner, her fingers clasped around the dangling pearl on the necklace that had been given to her, “Who is coming to collect me?” her face was stern. She didn’t like being talked about like property. Especially be her father and the man she’d given herself to rather intimately in the water by the docks the night before._

_“Fontanne,” her father started, “It’s nothing for you to be concerned about.”_

_“If it’s about me, I have every right to be concerned,” she snapped._

_Jules walked over and tried to touch her shoulder, but she smacked his hand away, “I promise, it’s for the best.”_

_“For the best?”_

_“The old gods will rise again one day, Daughter. As my child, I want the best for you. I want our family to be a part of it. I was hoping to do this while you slept so it would be less painful, but the look in your eyes tells me that you’re going to try to run,” she was his daughter and he knew her best, “Verne, hold her.”_

_“But, Sir…” the boy started, but he stopped quickly at the look he was given and grabbed her arm tightly._

_“Jules, let me go,” she yanked against him hard, but he didn’t, “What are you doing?! Mother!”_

_“She’ll be sad that she didn’t get to see you before this, but I will explain it. We have put too much time into you and can’t risk anything happening to ruin it,” he walked over and picked the little pearl up off her neck, “It’s so small compared to the one those Americans found.”_

_“Is it really the egg of a god, Mr. Beaulieu?”_

_“It’s an egg from a god. The seven who are one. The Dragon. One of the three-hundred-and-sixty-nine that were birthed and trapped by the watchers. This pearl is a piece of one of those eggs. It has the power to change humans into the form we will need to be in order to survive in the new world. Fontanne, you will begin a new world order,” she squirmed against Jules’ grasp and kicked her feet against the floor hard as her father grabbed the pearl necklace tighter, “Ughurraagaga umaa uthu gaa athemm ugathaaar ugugurathaam uth e mm ugg athaaa agathaa ett uraaa agthaa amaa ahh…”_

_“Mr. Beauliue, I think we should stop…”_

_But the man didn’t. He held firmly on the little pearl and kept repeating his gibberish till it started to glow. Fontanne felt like her legs were breaking and her lungs felt like they were going to burst. She’d broken her arm once as a child, till now, that had been the most painful experience of her life._

_“Mr. Beauliue, please stop!” she heard Jules’ voice fading away and everything went fuzzy and black._

**”What did they do to her?”**

_”Jules! What are you doing!? Put her back!”_

_“It’s not right, Mr. Beaulieu. It wasn’t right of us to do this to her. She didn’t deserve it!”_

_“She’s a goddess now! She will survive!”_

_“If she’s a goddess, then she belongs with her new mother…” the cold water hitting her face was enough to make her eyes snap open. The saltwater didn’t sting her eyes anymore. The cold didn’t hurt. What hurt was to surface herself and find the air painfully hard to pull into her lungs. She saw Jules looking down at her from the dock, “Go on. Get out of here. Quick, before they get the fishing nets.”_

_She didn’t understand. She reached out to him, but stopped when she saw her own hand. Fontanne pulled it back and touched it with her other hand, which looked the same. She tried to ask him why her hands looked so different, but no voice would come out. Frantically, she tried to grab at the docks and pull herself out, but her body felt so much heavier._

_“Get out of here!” he snapped again and swung his hand at her till she fell back down into the water. She stared up at him from under the wavy surface. She saw her father running up and grabbing at him. They fought for a moment before Jules was thrown to the ground by a hard punch to the face. She surfaced again, but dove back down quickly as her father picked up and tossed a large piece of netting towards her._

_**“I get it now. They did this to you and he ended up trying to repent by setting you free…” Abe pulled his hand away from hers and she slid back down into her tank, “You used to be human,” she nodded lightly as he sat down on the floor by the tank level with her, “That was almost a hundred and sixty years ago,” she nodded again, “I’m sorry, Miss. Fontanne, for what was done to you, but I still need to tell the Bureau about this.”** _

_**She pounded a little on the glass again, “I’m sorry, but nothing I saw is anything worth hiding from them.”** _

_**She pointed at him, “What?”** _

_**She tapped the glass and then pointed at him again, “Me? What about me?”** _

_**She pointed to herself and then to him again, “You think I am like you?” to which she nodded, “I know we have similar features, but I highly doubt that,” she shook her head and pointed to herself and to him again, “You have no proof,” to which she shot up and started swimming fast circles again, “Don’t act like that. No need to throw a hissy fit. If it makes you happy, I will keep your secret for now, but only till the genetic testing comes back to prove that we are not the same species. Once that is laid to rest, I will be telling Dr. Kraus. Understand?”** _

_**She nodded and settled back down in the corner of the tank.** _

_**“Is there anything else you’d like to show me?” her response was to shake her head and bury herself in her long tail fin, “Very well, I’ll find you something to eat.”** _


	3. Chapter 3

Her head popped out of the water and she looked over the edge of the tank as Abraham walked into the library, “Good afternoon, Anne. You slept much later than usual. Can I take that to mean you are feeling settled and comfortable here with us?” her response was to nod lightly as he pushed a ladder over towards her tank and climbed up it to get eye level with her, “Very good. I brought you something to eat,” her head bobbed back under the water for a bit, “I know, I know. It’s been hard finding food that fits into your diet. That or you’re just a picky eater. It’s rather difficult for me to imagine, but I suppose most mercreatures eat this way…”

He climbed down the ladder and picked up a bucket to haul back up, “I do expect you to clean up after this yourself. I’m not your housekeeper after all.”

He dumped the bucket into the tank and she watched as water spilled out with several large Threadfin fish. They were disoriented at first, but soon started swimming around the tank and her tail, “You didn’t like the cooked fish or the dead fish. So I figured we would let you catch them yourself.”

She dove back into the water and swam a few circles before settling down at the bottom. Abraham climbed down from the ladder to watch her. He heard the familiar noise of Johann’s suit behind him, “How is she doing today?”

“Very good. She seems to like the live fish much better.”

“Makes sense. She is a predator with thought. No reason to let her lose her natural instincts by treating her like a caged lion and just throwing her some dead chickens. Best to let her hunt.”

“Natural...yes…” the fishman mused as he watched her focus in on one of the fish. Her hand shot out quickly and wrapped around one of the fish, “Amazing.”

“It’s a shame we will only have her for a few more weeks. I should love to study her more,” the mechanical man stepped closer to the tank as she held onto the wiggling fish tightly.

“She’s not a lab animal, Johann. Nor is she the property of the B.P.R.D.. If at any point she makes it known that she wishes to be let go, I expect the agency to do it.”

“Abraham, you’ve been a ward of the bureau for a number of years. You know as well as I do that they will not stop till someone tells them that it’s enough. If it were not for Hellboy, they would have cut you open. If genetic testing proves that she is nothing more than a common mermaid, then they will do so to her. You, nor I, can prevent that,” they both watched as she sank her sharp little teeth into the seven inch long fish. She tore it open and blood fanned out in the water. 

Abe pressed a hand to the tank and watched as she devoured everything of the fish. Bones, guts, and all, “And what if we are the same species?”

“I cannot speak to that, Abraham. You know that.”

“I know. I’m just curious. Speaking of curious. When will the test results be back?”

Johann held up an envelope, “Came this morning. I thought about reading them first, but felt like you should have that privilege.”

The tall blue man stared at it for a moment before wrapping his webbed fingers around it, “I can honestly say that I don’t know if I want us to be the same or not,” if they were, then that meant more than Johann could understand. It meant that he was once a human too. It meant that the same people who had done this to her might have done it to him as well. It also meant that despite how similar they were, they were still physically different. Was she what he was to become or was he what she would become?

“I’ll leave you two alone…” Johann commented as Abe just stared at the envelope. 

He tapped on the glass of the tank as she was ‘hunting’ another one of the fish. Her head snapped around and she drifted over to the glass to look at him, “Test results,” she pointed at herself and then at him, “I know. This will tell us if you’re right or not.”

She shot her hand out and grabbed another fish as he started to pull the envelope open, “Do you have to eat while we do this?” to which she nodded, “Very well,” he shook his head as he pulled the papers out, “Oh dear. This is troubling,” he muttered as she pressed her forehead to the glass in an attempt to see what he was reading. It was difficult to know if she would understand what was written or not. She understood many languages, but that didn’t mean she would understand any kind of test results.

“Well, Miss. Fontanne, it appears you were correct. You are Ichthyo Sapiens...like me. We are not blood related, but we are the same species,” she nodded and tore a chunk of the fish off to eat as he turned his back to the tank and slid down the glass to sit on the floor. He jumped a little as a dead fish fell in his lap. He looked up to see her head poking over the edge of the tank. The other half of the dead fish still hanging in her mouth, “Thank you, but I prefer my food cooked. I appreciate the sentiment though.”

With a soft sigh, he climbed the ladder and gave her back the fish, “When you first saw me, you acted defensively. Why? You did not seem scared of Johann and he is much different from both you and I.”

She reached out and stroked one of his cheeks softly with her clawed fingertips, “You can show me. I want to know everything that I can. I’ve been with the B.P.R.D. since I was found in 1979. I know nothing of myself before that,” he moved to touch her hand, but she pulled back and sank to the bottom of the tank. He blinked a few times before climbing down and looking at her, “What’s wrong? Do you not want to show me?”

She didn’t respond to him. Instead, she curled up and buried her head in her tail fin, “Fontanne, I kept my promise. I didn’t tell anyone what you showed me. If they find out what you are, what I might truly be, there is no telling what they will do. The more I know, the better I can help. You know more about this than I do. Please show me what you know.”

Again, there was no response from the mermaid. She just shifted around to hide herself more. There were few times that Abe lost his cool, but he slammed his fist on the glass, “Show me. Please,” when she didn’t respond again, he slammed his fist hard enough to make the water ripple, “Fontanne, if I knew what you were and had a way to show you, wouldn’t you want me to? You’re not an animal or a child, so don’t act like one.”

When she still refused to respond to him, he huffed a little before climbing up the ladder, “Like I said, you’re not a child or an animal. Right now, you’re the scientific property of the B.P.R.D. and as such, I have the right to study you,” she finally responded as he swung one of his legs over the edge of the tank and slipped it into the water. 

She raised up a little and bared her teeth at him as he fell into the water. Her growls were much louder under the water than they were through the glass. There was no more talking. It was hard to talk under water. But body posture could show off a lot. 

She growled and let the dead fish float away as she narrowed her eye slits at him. Abe didn’t want to fight her, but he needed to know what she knew. There was a chance that she didn’t know anything else. That she’d been dumped in that sea port and that was it. There was also the chance that she did know something. He couldn’t assume that she didn’t.

He got close to her and she swung her hand out. Her natural instinct to fight was outdone by his years of training and handling creatures much stronger than herself. He didn’t want to fight her. He didn’t want to force himself into her mind like this. Eventually the bureau would find out and it was better if he knew what he was getting into before that happened.

He grabbed her wrist and she immediately lunged forward and bit into his shoulder. He didn’t count for her tail as it rounded and slammed into his side. He let go over her wrist and lunged for her again. He pinned her against the floor of the tank and wrapped his fingers around her gills. She started to struggle harder as he held his hands against her throat. Her tail thrashed and water splashed over the top of the tank as she clawed at his sides. 

If she didn’t know something, she wouldn’t be fighting so hard. That’s what he told himself as she went limp. Abe had never treated someone so cruelly before. It was usually over quick with a bullet to the head. He relaxed his hands immediately and waited till he saw her gills move again on their own. He’d never forgive himself if he’d killed her doing that. He told himself that this was for the best. If she wouldn’t tell him, then he had the right to force the information. He was an agent of the government after all and others would do much worse to her than hold her breath. At least he had the ability to get the information without her needing to be conscious. 

He reached down and slipped his hand into one of hers and focused. Without her filtering the thoughts for him, it was difficult to find the ones he needed. He just had to focus on himself. It was him that set her off, so it was him that he had to look for. 

He saw many different things. An aged Jules Verne looking down into the water at her with tears in his eyes. Her fighting against other mermaids and mermen. Many underwater caves. Even a few sunken cities and islands. 

Finally something stuck though. It didn’t look familiar or like anywhere he’d seen before, but it was the clearest memory he was getting. Abe wasn’t even sure what he was looking at. Some kind of underwater ruins. It looked to be a temple of some sorts. She was weaving her way around some chipped and sea moss covered columns. 

He watched as she explored the place. Taking in the sights himself. It was rather beautiful. He was amazed at how well preserved the whole place looked. It was hard to believe that the B.P.R.D. hadn’t found this place yet. If they had, they would have had no problem in sending him down to investigate it. He watched as she curled her long, fanning tail around a rock and settled on it. He moved closer and looked down at the seafloor near the base of the rock. 

There was some kind of writing on the stones. Not a language he was familiar with. Her clawed fingers traced the carved lines methodically. 

This seemed to go on forever till she finally moved further inside the temple. What did surprise him was what he saw inside. She swam up and curled around what appeared to be an egg. Abe didn’t think it impossible for her to breed, but it was hard to imagine the girl as any kind of a mother. She did appear to be awfully protective of it. Swiping and hissing at even the smallest fish that got near it. Abe wondered what year this was happening in. Unfortunately, underwater temples didn’t have the best calendars in them.

A bright light cause both of them to lift their heads up. Her teeth bared as the light got closer. She growled and swam quickly to a hiding spot behind the egg alter. Abe stood and watched as someone in a very old fashioned diving suit made their way through the temple. The suit kicked up the sand from the seafloor and all the fish around scattered. Abe moved closer and looked through the glass front of the suit. 

The man inside was at least in his forties with blond hair. He seemed familiar, but Abe couldn’t place him. Given the state of the diving suit, he knew this wasn’t a modern memory. The man in the suit seemed excited. He went about studying the same writing on the stones that Fontanne had. He ran his gloved fingers over a fading carving of some kind of giant jelly fish. Just looking at it made Abe shiver. It was obviously the deity the people who built this worshipped. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t like it, but it unnerved him to look upon it.

The man’s next stop was the egg. He reached out to touch it and Abe shouted, “Get away from her egg!” but he knew the man couldn’t hear him or see him. He knew this was just a memory and he couldn’t stop anything from happening. 

Apparently she wasn’t going to just sit back and let it be taken either. Abe moved out of the way quickly as a large boulder from above came smashing down. The diver was able to move out of the way in time, but he had the egg in his hands. Abe looked up to see her head poking over the edge of where the boulder had come from. The diver saw her too and his eyes seemed to widen in shock for a moment before he started to make his way from the temple.

Fontanne wasn’t done though. She darted after him and clawed at his suit. He brought up a knife and drove it into her shoulder. Blood fanned out in the water and she screeched as she retreated for a moment. Abe followed as she chased him through the temple. He swung at her with his diving knife and she took each blow as she tried to pry the egg from his hands. She only stopped when a large submarine came into sight. 

Abe didn’t blame her for not continuing the chase. There was no telling what the people onboard would do to her. The diver looked back at her with a bit of sympathy, but not enough to return the stolen child to her. He boarded the submarine and after a few moments, it started to drift away. Abe knelt down next to her as she laid her body out on the sandy seafloor.

The memory ended as he broke his hold on her hand. He drifted back to the top of the tank and climbed out slowly. His mind was racing. The only logical thing he could come up with was that the egg had been hers. The genetic testing hadn’t said they were close enough to be related, but perhaps that was just how their species was. If she was turned into what she was in the 1840s and he was found in the 1970s, it was entirely possible that the egg had been his own. 

That man had taken him from her. If that was the case, then she was his mother. 

Had she feared that he might be angry with the truth? That he would feel as if she hadn’t fought hard enough to save him? Abe certainly didn’t feel that way. In fact, he wasn’t sure how he felt at all.


	4. Chapter 4

“I understand why you’re mad with me. I shouldn’t have cut off your air, but you really left me no choice,” he followed her around the tank as she circled it in an attempt to avoid him, “My method may not have been the most appropriate, but I have a right to know about myself. If you know something about me, you cannot keep it from me. It’s not fair that you know everything about yourself, but will not share what you know of me. You were once human, you can understand the need for information. I’m sure even now you can understand that.”

Her only response was to flip her tail up and splash water over the top of the tank at him, “Please don’t be so childish. I know why you were so protective of that memory. You’re worried that I’ll be angry with you over what happened. I promise I’m not. I just want to understand it better.”

That got her to stop. She settled down and looked at him blankly. Abraham sighed and set his forehead against the glass, “That man, he took the egg from you. You tried to fight him, you tried to smash him with a boulder. You did what you were capable of doing to protect the egg. Your egg. My egg.”

Her blank stare turned to one of confusion, “I saw the whole thing, Fontanne. He stole your egg. I’m sorry you lost it. That was me in there, wasn’t it? You were scared that I would be upset if I found out that you lost me. You would rather I not know who you were than to let me find out that I was taken from you.”

Her big eyes blinked a little before she leaned forward towards the glass more. Abe did the same, but instead of resting their heads together, Abe gasped as she blew bubbles at him. He took a step back as she started swimming fast circles, “What is wrong with you? Why must you act like a child?”

Her response was to blow bubbles at him again and he threw his hands up, “I give up.”

“Give up on what, Abraham?” Johann asked as he came clunking into the room.

“Her. I give up on her. She’s impossible.”

“Having a lovers quarrel?”

Abe shuddered a little at the wording. He was still convinced that he was her child, “Please don’t word it that way, Johann. I am trying to discuss something important with her and she’s...she’s blowing bubbles at me. You deal with her,” he huffed and stormed from the library.

Johann’s suit made a hissing noise as some air was pushed out from the neck piece, “Now, now, you’re not being very kind to him, are you?”

She did a little flip under the water and blew bubbles at him as well, “You are being very childish. It’s not very lady like,” to which she did not respond at all and just went on to swim lazy circles, “I have no doubts that Abraham knows more about you than he is admitting to knowing.”

She shrugged her shoulders and swam up to the top of the tank and peeked over the top. She spat a stream of water at him and he stepped back quickly, “Mein gott, you unruly woman. I do not know what Abraham did to you to make you act like a little child. This is completely uncalled for. As I said before, I know that Abraham knows something about you. Why he is choosing to hide it, I cannot say. You need to know that the B.P.R.D. knows that you two are of the same species. They will try to use you for experiments if you do not prove some kind of worth to them. Let me tell you a story.”

She drifted back down to the bottom of the tank and watched him as he spoke, “I was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1946. I became aware of my abilities as a medium when I was young. I was very frustrated to see the ghosts everywhere, but I was unable to speak with them. It took many years of study to be able to communicate with them effectively,” she seemed to be losing interest as she started fiddling with her tail fin and the small wounds left over from where, “In 2002, I became what you see now. I wasn’t always like this,” that caught her attention again, “I was once a man. I was conducting a seance in Heidelberg when a man in China opened a jade figurine. The psychic shockwave killed the family I was working with and destroyed my body. I had nothing to come back to. My ectoplasmic form was still alive while my body was incinerated.”

“My abilities have been greatly enhanced without my body, but I am alone in the world now. There is no one else in the world like me. No one else who is alive, but walks the line of death. I am not dead, but I am hardly able to live. If another person like myself was found in the world, I would want to know everything about them. I’m sure Abraham feels the same way. If you do not cooperate with him, he will not be able to help you if the bureau decides you are of no use. I believe it would be in your best interest to get along with him.”

It was impossible to tell if he was truly looking at her since he lacked a head and facial features, but the posture of his body told her that he was. She blew bubbles at him again and he shook his glass head, “He has the right to know about himself and his people. It is cruel of you to keep whatever information you have from him. Abraham is a kind man. He defends the people who call him a monster and he has no memories of himself. That you should keep what you know of his people to yourself is shameful.”

“Just so you know, and I do not mean this as a threat, if the bureau cannot find reason to keep you; they may let you go...or they may decide to find out more about your anatomy.”

Her eyes widened a little before she sunk down to the bottom of the tank and covered her head up with her tail fin, “I do not think you are a bad woman, Miss. I have no doubts you have endured something awful in your life. Perhaps Abraham would be the only one to understand.”

He left her with her thoughts. Johann had little to say to someone who was behaving the way she was. He klunked his way through the compound till he found Abe sitting in a water tank in a secondary room. The aquatic man had his large tank in the library, but even he needed privacy and liked to be alone. 

The blue man was sitting in the tank with his head in his hands, “I’m sorry she is being so difficult. It must be hard for her to communicate when she does not speak our language.”

“...I’m not so sure she can’t,” he muttered lightly before looking over at his ectoplasmic friend.

“Abraham, I believe you should tell me what you know of her,” to which Abe gave him a puzzled look, “If I know what is going on, I may be able to help.”

“I’m not so sure you would understand.”

“Abraham, I am a ball of gas being held together in a diving suit. Why would I not understand?” he had a good point.

The fishman took a deep breath before deciding, “Alright. I think...no, I know, she was human.”

“That would mean you two are not of the same species then. She must be cursed. I’m sure we have a team that could handle that to bring her back to her humanity.”

“No...she’s not cursed...maybe she is...but we are the same species. The test results show that. She showed me her first day here. I know I should have told you, but I promised her that I wouldn’t. At least not till the test results came back. I don’t know all of the details yet, but she showed me what happened to her,” Abe proceeded to tell his friend everything he’d seen in her mind. Not just how she was turned into what she was, but also about the egg. Saying it outloud to someone not involved, it sounded insane. People just weren’t turned into other creatures like that. It was unlike anything they had encountered before.

Johann was silent for several long moments, “I see. Well, that is certainly interesting. Do you believe it? After all, she would not be the first creature in the world to be able to show false memories when they know they are being probed.”

“I do believe her. There was a lot of pain in her eyes. She was sad and angry.”

“Well then, we cannot let them take her to the northern compound then.”

Abraham looked up and eyed his friend curiously, “I don’t see why not.”

“Why would we? If she really is what you say she is, then we cannot allow you two to be separated. As far as we know, you two are the only of your kind. It would be both emotionally and scientifically wrong to not study you two together. Especially if it turns out that she truly is your mother. A woman deserves to know her child.”

If he could smile, Abe was sure he would. As angry and childish as she was behaving right now, he still wanted to learn more about her, “I’m not sure how Director Manning is going to respond to that. After all, we don’t really have the space to house both of us.”

“Oh, I’m sure something can be worked out. After all, only you, myself, and she actually stay here. If need be, I’m sure Hellboy’s room can be converted into something useful,” the mechanical man’s diving suit body hissed as steam released from it, “If nothing else, we can always transfer to the Colorado base temporarily. It is much larger than this one.”

“I see no reason to jump to a base transfer right away,” he wasn’t comfortable with the Colorado base. It was covered in snow and built into a mountain. He wasn’t terribly close to the ocean here, but he was much closer to it here than he would be in Colorado.

“Of course not. Though I must say that I do not believe she is angry with you for the reasons you believe.”

“What makes you think that? I attacked her,” which he still found hard to believe he’d done, “And if that was my egg, it makes sense that she would be upset for having not protected me.”

“You said the test stated that you are not related. What if it was not your egg?”

Abe looked down at the water he was sitting in, “If not mine, then why would she think of me in connection to that memory. Who does the egg belong to?”

“I think she would be the only one that can answer that, Abraham.”


	5. Chapter 5

For the most part, the base was empty when it happened. There was the security guards on duty, but most of them stayed away from the library and usually just stayed upstairs and watched the monitors. It was a rare occasion for so few agents to be there. 

Johann and Abe both blamed the guards on duty for the incident. One of them turned the lights off completely in the library while everyone was away. It was night and no one thought anything of it. The mermaid was sound asleep and the night guard thought the day guard would turn the light back on. He didn’t. He stayed in the front lobby with the security camera screens. 

Fontanne woke to find herself in the darkened room. Even the light from Abe’s tank was turned out. It wasn’t the most eerie place she’d ever been in, but it was unsettling after a while. She laid down against the floor of her tank and waited. Just waited and waited. For someone. Anyone, to come and turn the light on or feed her. She could deal without the light, but she was hungry. 

The first day passed and she slept through most of it, but the second day passed and she was splashing water all over the library. Books meant nothing to her. She didn’t care if they were damaged or how valuable they might have been.

By the third day, her stomach and urges were ruling her mind. She was so hungry. Why was no one checking on her? She just didn’t understand. They would later explain to Abe and Johann that they each thought the other was taking care of her.

It was the crashing sound and the sound of rushing water that finally got their attention on the fourth day. She’d used her tail to smash the side of the tank out. The small crack she made wasn’t able to withstand the force of her tail. The glass went flying out and the whole thing collapsed. The water gushed out all over the room.

The guard on duty heard the noise and came running finally. He found her laying on the floor in puddles of glass, blood, and water. Trying to crawl her way towards Abe’s tank where she knew there was food. Not a lot, just rotted eggs that she had seen in a container. Her hands were around the container, but there was nothing in it.

He called other guards to help. They all knew they had to get her into water. Already her breathing was labored. Without thinking, they hauled her to Abraham’s tank and managed to dump her into it. That wasn’t the end of it though. The guards were taken by surprised as she started shrieking loudly. She threw her body against Abe’s tank, trying to climb her way out of it. They stared in shock as her skin and scales started bubbling a bit and blood started seeping out. One of them crawled up the ladder again and grabbed onto one of her flailing, clawed, and webbed hands. He dragged her out and the other one started wiping the water off with his jacket.

They weren’t aware that the water in Abe’s tank had been fresh water. He preferred it, though the isolation tank in his private room was sea water. It was only because she grabbed at the spilled water on the floor and rubbed it against her gills that they knew it had to be the water. Not knowing of Abe’s private tank, they didn’t know what else to do and were forced to call the team and explain what had happened.

Abraham snapped over the phone to get her into his room tank, but by then she was barely moving and there were dozens of open sores on her body. 

“I can’t believe this happened,” Abe reached over the edge of his isolation tank and touched her shoulder lightly. She’d been unconscious since they got back from their mission. The guards responsible were transferred to another site. If not, it was likely that Abe was to hurt one of them. While normally very mild tempered, he was becoming more and more irritable with each passing year.

“She will be alright, Abraham. The doctors taking care of her are the ones that took care of you when Sammael attacked you. She will make a good recovery. I promise,” Johann set one of his suited hands on Abe’s shoulder, “Do you still believe she is your mother?”

“I don’t know. It’s the only thing that makes sense. If she was eighteen in 1846, then she was born in 1828. That’s a hundred and fifty years before I was found in that tank. There’s no telling what our life span is in this form. It’s entirely possible that in the hundred and thirty-two years that she’s been in this form that she could have mated with another mercreature and produced me. Who says she even has to mate, for all we know, she can just lay eggs like a chicken whenever she wants.”

The doctors had removed the breathing apparatus from around her gills this morning and she was breathing on her own now. She was still covered in sores from the exposure to the fresh water. Her beautiful scales were marked and bleeding. Her teal skin was rough and scratched from crawling through the glass.

“When she recovers, we should arrange for her to try to take us to that temple you saw. Perhaps you can find out more there.”

“I thought they were going to move her up north once she recovered?”

“Arrangements can be made. If what you saw in her mind was true, then who knows how many more are out there like you two. You and I both have a lot of field experience. We’ve built up a lot of credit. We can make a request to keep her here for at least a research mission. After all, part of our job is research. If there is a way to turn people into...what you two are...then we need to get on top of it.”

Abe didn’t know what to say. He’d been worried that she would be forced to leave before he got any more answers. After all, once the other facility got a hold of her, they’d start their own testing and chances were that they were going to kill her. Just like they had planned for him.

He reached down and clasped one of her hands. It was a little smaller than his own and it had similar features to his own; but there were obvious differences. The claws for one. The webbing was wider than his, allowing for more movement in the water and greater push when she swam. Her whole body was this way. They were so similar, but there were just the smallest differences. 

Her face, as animal like as his own, he could still see the woman she’d been in it. She’d been a lovely girl as a human. If her family had not done what they did, he wondered how her life would have turned out. Jules Verne had obviously only come into her life as part of it. She would have lived out her life as a French woman of the time. Probably marry due to some kind of family arrangement. Maybe a child or two. Then many days of drinking wine and gossiping to other married women. Then death. Her beauty would have faded with age and the simplicity of her life. She never would have experienced romance, adventure, or this whole other world she was pushed into. 

He heard Johann leaving the room and sighed lightly, “Who are you to me?” he asked softly, knowing she couldn’t reply. 

He thought about the egg. It had been beautiful. A soft cream color. It looked almost glowing with the softest pink. It was on that pedestal like it deserved to be worshiped. Had she cared about it that much? Even after what her life was, she still had it in her to mother an egg and care for it. He respected that. There was no telling how she came to produce the egg. Abe wondered if one of the males of mercreature tribe had forced himself on her, if she had allowed it, or if it was as he said and she could just produce them on her own. Would it be inappropriate to ask her once she was conscious again? Most definitely inappropriate.

Abe knew why he was yearning so much to know that she was his mother. Why he wanted it to be the truth. Because he needed answers. He need to know about himself. If she was his mother, that gave him a real connection to someone. 

Not just the egg, but the man who had taken it, was in his mind. The face in that diving suit. That awful man who had taken it from her. 

The man, the egg, the temple, that strange jellyfish carving...it all felt so familiar. He needed answers. Once she was better, he would make a deal with her. If he had to promise her release without permission from higher up, then so be it. He would do what was necessary.


	6. Chapter 6

“She seems to be faring better. Are you sure you are alright with converting your tank to sea water for her? We can get a new tank for her.”

Abe was standing on the ladder to his library tank testing the water, “This will be better. It’s larger. She needs the space to recover. I barely use it anymore anyway,” along with his temper on occasion, his need for constant water was lessening over time as well, “Any books that could be salvaged from the higher shelves are in my room anyway. She needs the space. I was thinking we could convert the whole room for her.”

“That is a nice thought, Abraham,” Johann sounded a bit like he was humoring a child, “But, you know, it is probably not for the best to let her get too comfortable. She is only here temporarily. Even with the extended stay the Bureau has given us to do the exploration for that temple, she will still be heading to the northern facility after that.

“Depending on what we find, they may change their minds about that,” he sounded hopeful. 

Abe had been spending a lot of time alone with Anne. The doctors didn’t seem to believe so, but he wanted to believe that having him so close is what helped. Within a few days, she was already conscious again. She seemed in better spirits than she had when he left. She didn’t seem as testy and irritable. In fact, she seemed more social towards him. Perhaps her near death experience had pushed her to be more open with him.

Granted, she still didn’t seem to be able to speak, but she socialized with him in other ways. She would reach out and touch his cheek with her fingertips and claws. Or she would look at him and he could tell that if she could smile that she would. She didn’t splash water at him, intentionally, anymore. And there was no more bubble blowing at him either. She seemed genuinely interested being close to him now.

She even offered to share her memories with him willingly this time.

It was interesting seeing her life in the water. Her travels and experiences. The more prominent ones were about Verne. He knew the man’s writing and it was always rumored that his stories were true, but it was a matter of how they were true. Anne didn’t seem to know who ‘Nemo’ was, but he saw everything through her eyes. Every bit of it. There wasn’t a detail in her memories that wasn’t detailed in his book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It was incredible. 

The two had been very much in love and he wondered if, by some chance, she really was his mother, was it possible that Verne was his father? It put unpleasant thoughts into his mind on how a human man would be intimate with her. There were stories of mating with mermaids and several different theories behind it. However, given the last memory she shared of him, he had his doubts that something like that had happened.

As in love as they were, Verne had eventually abandoned her and married. He heard the man’s words. That he couldn’t spend his life chasing a mermaid. That she was risking her life trying to see him, because her father and group could still be looking for her. Telling her to leave and never try to find him again. From what he knew, Verne moved away from the ocean and sea ports after his marriage. It made sense now. She couldn’t find him there. Even if there was waterways, it would have been fresh water. He’d broken her heart.

The only thing she would not share with was more about the temple or egg. He hoped to make a deal for that once she was in the larger tank, which would be shortly.

The man came carrying her into the room and he climbed down to help, “How are you feeling, Anne?” he asked softly as they worked to get her up the two part ladder. Her response was to reach out and touch his cheek. He liked when she did that. It felt nice. Comforting, “This tank will be much more comfortable than that iso tank. I promise.”

Abe climbed into the water first and slipped his arms under her body to keep her from being dropped in. She wrapped an arm around his neck and held on as the other men worked to lower her in, “There we go…” he muttered softly, “Thank you all. You can go now,” he excused the other.

She’d been cooped up for several weeks now in the iso tank while the doctors took care of her. The moment her body was completely under the water, she slipped from his arms and swam the length of the tank and back. There was no smile on her face, but he knew she was happier with this, “I’m glad you like it. It has been mine since 1987, but it’s yours now. That is...if you want it.”

Fontanne swam up close to him and leaned in to nuzzle his shoulder a little. It was much more affectionate than he was used to her being towards him. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her gently, “I only ask for one thing in return. Just one thing. Anne, you need to take me to the temple. The one from your memories. Where the egg was.”

Her old personality came back quick as she yanked back from his touch and swam to the opposite side of the tank from him, shaking her head violently under the water.

“Anne, please, don’t be like that. It’s not like I’m going to take the tank back just because you don’t want to go,” he was far too kind to do that, “Think of it more as a favor than as repayment,” he swam over to her and tried to touch her shoulder, but she swung her tail up and hid behind it, “Please not this again. We were doing so well. You like the tank, but would you rather be back out in the ocean? Take me to see the temple and I’ll make sure that you get to slip away. No one will come after you. I promise,” even if they did, they wouldn’t know where to look.

She ignored him and he reached out to push aside her tail fin and looked her face over. She looked upset and nervous, “I’m sorry. You probably think this whole tank has to do with me wanting something. I promise it isn’t. I just wanted you to be more comfortable. Anne, you were so adamant about letting me know that we were the same, but now you won’t let me know anything else. You’ve been alone for a long time, haven’t you?”

She nodded a little.

“You don’t have to be alone anymore. You have me now. Please tell me, was that egg...was it yours? Was it me?” she shook her head and moved forward to nuzzle into his shoulder again, this time for comfort, “So it wasn’t your egg or my egg,” it answered one question, but brought up more. It meant that he wasn’t any closer knowing anything about himself, “Then why were you so hellbent on protecting it?”

She slipped from his arms again and she went up to the surface of the tank, leaning over the edge of it and resting her head on her arms. He came up behind her and rubbed a hand over her back, massaging around the small fin that ran along her spine, “Please take me there. I deserve to know who I am. If that wasn’t me in the egg, then why were you thinking of me for that memory? If you can’t tell me, then at least take me there so I can try to figure it out for myself. If you want to go off and be alone again after that, then so be it. I’ll help you do that. If you want to come back here and stay here, I’ll find a way to make that happen too.”

Fontanne turned and looked him in the eyes. Abe knew that if their bodies were similar enough that she would have no tear ducts, plus her face was already wet; but he could swear that she had tears in her eyes.

He gathered her up in his arms and held her tight as he rubbed her back. Abraham couldn’t help but notice that the waistline of her scales felt lower. He didn’t make it a habit of feeling her body, but he had handled her a few times and something just seemed a bit off. He told himself that it was just a misjudgement on his end. After all, he reassured himself, he didn’t make it a habit of knowing a woman’s body all that well.

“You’ll take me, won’t you?”

She nodded lightly before sinking down out of his arms and to the bottom of the tank. Abe felt he’d pushed her enough for the day and made his way out of the tank to give her some time to herself, “I’ll bring you something to eat in a few hours, okay?” her only response wave a hand at him weakly as she buried herself into her long tail fin.

Johann was waiting for him just outside the library, “Did you hear enough?” Abe asked.

“I did not mean to pry, but yes,” the other man started to follow along down the hallway.

“She’s going to take me to the temple.”

“Us. She is going to take us to the temple. You cannot go alone, Abraham.”

“I know,” his tone was short.

“You know you should not be making promises to her that you cannot keep…”

Abe stopped and looked over at his friend, “Who says I won’t keep them? I’ve told you before, Johann, if she doesn’t want to be here, I will make sure she is let go. She’s not a science experiment. The Bureau has me if they want to test on someone. She’s been through enough, she doesn’t need to be a lab pet.”

The ectoplasmic man raised his hands up in a gesture of defense, “I understand. It is not my place. I do hope, not for the Bureau, but instead for you, that she decides to stay. I think it would be good for you. She is...enchanting, no?”

“Johann, I just found out that she isn’t my mother. I don’t think discussing how myself or others view her is very appropriate. Do you?”

His hands went up again, “Then do not answer me. Personally, I do find her fascinating. She is unique. I wish she could speak. It seems a little unfair that only you get to experience the adventures of her life.”

“Maybe I’ll write a book one day,” he said with a teasing tone to his voice.


	7. Chapter 7

It had taken a lot of convincing from both himself and Johann to get this mission accepted. Manning didn’t like the idea of letting a possibly dangerous creature back free. It was hard to convince him that Fontanne wasn’t like the other mercreatures they had found. Especially since he still wasn’t entirely fond of Abe. 

In the end, they convinced him that it was a matter of research and safety. If she and Abe could be turned, then it was possible that others could.

There was a big change in her personality once they were out on the ocean. She was, for the time on the ship, left in the cargo of the ship in a tub of sea water. Abraham stayed with her for most of the trip. She’d given them the general area on a map and once they got there, she and Abe would go into the water with a small group of divers. She had refused to give an answer to him on whether she wanted to stay with the BPRD or go back out to sea. He hoped he got an answer soon.

“Have you been back here since then?” he asked as the boat swayed a little.

She shook her head and played with the water in her tub before reaching up and playing with the breathing apparatus.

“I know it’s uncomfortable. I had to wear one for a long time whenever I left my tank,” from her memories, he realized that she had always had the fish tail. She’d never had legs like he did. It put more questions into his mind. Maybe the females were just this way. Or maybe it had something to do with her isolation in the ocean or the ice cap that they found her in. There were so many possibilities to explain their physical differences. There was also the fact that he now knew he wasn’t her child, so that could mean that he was older than her. That meant that she could still become like him one day, “Maybe one day you won’t need it either.”

She nodded lightly in what seemed to be hope and agreement.

Abe walked over and opened the large cooler they had brought with. This one was a bit larger than the others. It was filled with water and a few fish swimming around. He wasn’t quite as good a fish catcher as she was, but he did well on the third try to wrangle one of the squirming fish and carry it over to her. 

She seemed happier once they were on the ship and she could look out the window and see the ocean. The whole trip to get on the ship, she had growled and spit water at everyone. Abe imagined it wasn’t the most pleasant or comfortable thing to be moved. In the water, she could take care of herself, but having to be carried around probably irked on her nerves. 

But out on the boat, she was as happy and affectionate as the men who had originally pulled her up said she was. She cooed and nuzzled anyone that came close enough for her to do so. The ship crew were enchanted with her. Just as with the other mermaids they had found over the years, these sailors were attracted to her. It was lucky for them that she wasn’t nearly as violent as them. Abe had seen sailors get their arms ripped off and throats ripped open by the other ones. He made sure to remind all of them that most mermaids were not as kind as Anne.

“Abraham, we are nearly there,” Johann stuck his glass head into the room.

“Thank you,” he responded, though his eyes stayed on Fontanne as she tore into the fish he’d given her. 

He reached out and stroked his fingers along her cheek as she turned to look at him with a fish tail sticking out of her mouth. Abe knew why he felt so close to her. At first it had been because they were the same species and it meant he wasn’t alone. Then because he had thought she might be his mother, a missing part of his life, a family member. Now he felt like he had to take care of her, watch over her, and keep her safe. 

She cooed as the other men came in to help get her on deck. The cooing turned to small growls as they worked to get her up top for the dive. Johann tutted her, telling her that they were doing their best and making a comment about how she still had the attitude of an 18th century French girl as well as the ocean. Beautiful and adventurous, but easily angered and hard to calm. That seemed to please her.

Abraham went down first with two other men. The waters were calm today and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Abe was lightly equipped, just his usual wear and a diving knife. The others were in full diving gear with specialized guns and weapons for underwater fighting. Abe wondered what the Bureau expected to be down there. 

Fontanne was the last to go down. They strapped a tracker around her waist like Abe wore, though she made her dislike of it well known. The breathing apparatus was removed just before they lowered her down into the water. Abe stayed close to her till she was completely under the light waves.

The other men tensed up and even aimed their weapons as she took off. She was faster than he thought she was. Abe became nervous that she’d lied just to get out here. He watched her bluish form disappear into the waves. He hadn’t turned her tracker on yet. She could be gone and they’d never be able to find her. That was part of his plan in the end if she wanted to leave the Bureau. He had been counting on her speed and coloring to help her get away if it came to that. But now she was abandoning him.

He felt something behind him and pulled his diving knife. He whirled around and was shocked to see her floating there in front of him. She had a playful look in her eyes. She’d managed to get around the boat in that short amount of time. Even more scary was how silently she did it. Granted, she had many years of practice moving like that, but it was still horrifying that, if she wanted to, she probably could have killed him before the others even noticed.

He raised a finger up as if to scold her before reaching down and turning her tracker on. The little blue light lit up around her waist. Anne wrapped her fingers around his hand and started to tug. He waved his free hand for the other men to follow.

The temple was even more beautiful than he had imagined it would be. Even more so than her memories made it out to be. He wondered how long ago that memory happened. Based on the amount of sea moss and things of that nature, he knew that the memory had been quite a while ago.

He followed her as she weaved in and out of the ruined pillars. The divers had trouble keeping up with them, but he didn’t care. It felt freeing being here. He could get the trackers off of them and they could both swim off if they wanted to. No one would ever find them. Abe easily abandoned those thoughts as he remembered that for all the annoyances of the Bureau, they were still part of his life. As Hellboy once said, for rotted eggs and the safety of all mankind.

The divers took rock samples and things of that nature as she showed him around. She grabbed a piece of vegetation from the sand and took a bit from it before offering it to him. He hadn’t realized that she ate anything other than other fish. It just hadn’t occurred to him that she was an omnivore. Abe was hesitant, but he ended up taking a bite as well. It tasted almost like a carrot, but more stringy and grainy. There was a natural sweetness and it even had a crunch to it, which surprised him since it was under water. Abe realized that he didn’t eat much sea cultivated foods, despite that being what he naturally should.

They abandoned the carrot like vegetable to explore more. He spent several long minutes studying the carvings around what would have been the entrance. It was a writing he was unfamiliar with. The ocean had worn much of it away over however many years it had been down here. Abe couldn’t think of any records that placed a city or island in this location. It was fairly far out in the ocean. What sort of people could have lived here?

He left the carvings for the divers with the water cameras to document as he went inside. He saw the piece of ceiling that she’d pushed the boulder off of to try to kill the diver in her memory. Below it was the pedestal that the egg had been sitting on. Behind it was the carving of the jellyfish creature. It was obviously the deity that was worshipped here. 

It made sense. On their way here, there had been a lot of groupings of jellyfish. All different kids. Abe had never seen so many species in one place before. It was like they were drawn here. If it had been like this when people were here, then it made a lot of sense that they might worship them. Especially with their likely lack of knowledge of the animals. A lot of ancient cultures viewed animals and things that could ‘shock’ and ‘sting’ in strange ways. A jellyfish would have probably been the strangest looking things they had ever seen.

He ran his fingers over the pedestal and remembered what she had looked like being near it. How she had laid on the sand and wrapped her tail around it protectively. It wasn’t her egg, but she had taken such great care with it. Treating it lovingly and even putting herself in harms way to protect it. It was endearing to think that she had protected that egg. He hoped she could find a way to explain to him where it came from.

He glanced at her curiously as she swam up to the jellyfish carving and began methodically running her fingers along the lines. Her eyes seemed to go blank as the stroked the carved lines over and over. He moved close to her and reached out to touch her hand, but she grabbed his hand instead. She took his fingers and started tracing them along the lines as well. 

He felt calm the more he did it. Everything else seemed to fade away as they traced the lines together. All he could feel was the stone under his fingertips and her hand on the back of his. Even the sounds of the divers seemed to fade away. He wondered, till even those thoughts floated away, if this stone had magical properties that caused this feeling and it was why the people who had inhabited it worshipped here.

Abraham looked around and saw the splendor of the temple in all it’s glory. It was different though. There was no water. Just clear blue skies and a warm breeze. It was beautiful. The ceiling was still missing, but he realized now that there had never been one. Just a hang over to shadow the pedestal. 

He turned to ask Fontanne what was happening, but found himself too shocked to speak. She looked just as she did in the memories she first showed him. She was at least a foot shorter than himself. Pearl white skin that made her chocolate brown hair and eyes stand out. Not an ounce of makeup on her face, just her natural beauty. It was amazing to see how beautiful she was so close. She was even wearing the dress from the memory too. Long, white cotton that dragged the floor slightly. A pink, satin ribbon around her waist. She was probably even wearing the white slippers that she had complained to Verne about losing when he pushed her into the water.

He looked down to see if he was still the same or not. He was surprised to see that he wasn’t. His hands were human and so was the rest of him. He was wearing an old fashion suit. Very old fashion. He would even guess it being Victorian era. She was wearing what she wore last before becoming what she was. Is this what he’d worn? There were no reflective surfaces for him to see his face, but he reached up to touch and feel. 

“Anne…” he tried to speak, but she reached a hand up and touched her fingers to his lips to shush him. She then pointed towards the entrance of the temple.

Abraham watched as several people came inside. They were like him. Both males and females that looked like he did. Merpeople, but on land. The bluish skin and the black striping. Even the same fins as he had. They were all in the nude and appeared to be carrying something. It was a young man, probably in his late teens. He looked like a normal human. Naturally tanned skin with dark hair. His body was stripped nude and he was painted with the same stripings that he and these other people had on their bodies.

Fontanne took his hand and moved closer to the pedestal so they could watch, “You’ve seen this before?” he asked in a whisper, as if they could be heard. She nodded and he turned his gaze to watch again.

They laid the young man out on the pedestal and one of the girls from the group stepped forward. She leaned over and brushed the hair from his face. He reached up and wrapped a hand around her head. They moved together to kiss. One of the other men reached out to pull her back. Not in anger, but so that they could continue the ritual. 

Another female, came forth. She was holding a large egg in her hands. It looked almost exactly as the one from her memory, but just a bit smaller and the coloring was more purple than pink. She brought it up to the young man and set it on his stomach. He reached up to hold it and keep it steady.

It occurred to him as he looked the grouping over. They all looked the same. There didn’t appear to be any elders like most ancient places had. Maybe they all underwent this change at the same age and it preserved them there. Looking at Fontanne, even in this strange vision, she looked the age she’d been then instead of her actual age of over a hundred.

The group surrounded the pedestal and Anne nudged him a little to stand closer to the young man. There was no fear in his eyes and his face was relaxed. Anne held onto Abe’s hand tight as they listened to the group start to chant. It was the same strange words her father had said in the memory.

The boy started to squirm as the egg started to glow. It was just like the small pearl on the necklace that Verne had given her. The way it lit up when her father started chanting the same words. Abe wanted to stop this, but he knew he couldn’t. He knew it was just a dream or a vision of the past. He wanted to watch the whole thing, but Anne tugged on his arm a little bit. 

He resisted a little, but followed as the boy’s mouth opened in a silent scream of pain. The egg cracked a little as they passed through the group and she took him outside. The pillars were fully formed and the words carved on the outside were beautiful. Abraham wished he could stay here and study all of it.

The whole island was a perfect paradise. Bleach white sands. Dozens of palm trees. The smell of tropical fruit. The warm breeze. The clear skies. He could spend hours just laying out on the sand and sleeping the day away. That was the kind of place it was. Other than the temple, there wasn’t another building around. It was just perfect.

Anne led him to the shore. She hiked up her dress a little, as if the water could damage it. As he’d expected, she was wearing the same white slippers she’d lost. The waves washed up a little, but it didn’t wet either of their feet. She pointed out to the water with her free hand.

“My god…” he gasped as he looked.

There were hundreds, if not thousands, of jellyfish. Swarms of them just floating. Further out, Abe saw one that had to be the biggest he’d ever seen in his life. He realized that it was the one that had been carved into the temple wall. 

“The ocean is calling her children back to her, Abraham. One day, we will have to answer the calling too. We have no choice.”

He would have been more shocked to hear her speak, but he was still focused on the apparent God like jellyfish, “W-what are we?”

“I haven’t found out yet. Abraham, I found it. Her. Our mother. She was frozen.”

“That thing is still alive?”

“Alive? I don’t know about that. But it’s body is still here on Earth. Verne and I tracked it. He didn’t want to go back to it,” that’s when he’d left her for a new life on his own, “I went back on my own. I wanted to see if it was alive or not...but I got trapped in that ice. It’s probably still there.”

“We need to find it. Make sure it’s dead.”

“Together,” she clasped his hand tight.

The vision ended there. He blinked and found himself back in the water. Back as the fish creature that he was. He looked over to see Anne back in her mermaid form as well. Their hands were still held together. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed softly to show he understood. 

They were in this together now. He still didn’t know who he had been, but he knew he would find out. He believed that Anne had shown him her memories of the egg so that he could come here and see what she knew. She had protected that egg because she didn’t want it’s evil back into the world. 

He would help her make sure it never happened again.


	8. Chapter 8

“Abraham, I know you want to make this trip, but it’s now feasible right now. Things are getting bad in the world. We’ve even tried to contact Liz and Hellboy, but neither of them can be found,” Manning shook his head a little, “We need you and Johann here.”

“Why? Because we look good to have on the payroll? Because you can show us off like pets? If you won’t ‘allow’ me to go, then I will just go. I don’t need your approval if I quit again. Don’t forget, Manning, that we have done it before. We’re not scared of the outside world,” just because it was difficult for him to live in didn’t mean he couldn’t do it. 

“It’s not like that. You saw the news reports and we had to clean up that mess in Germany last week. Who knows what’s going to come next. You’re here to protect humanity. Running, or swimming, off with some mermaid isn’t going to help anyone but yourself.”

“I am inclined to agree,” Johann spoke up. He walked over to the large tank and waved a little to Fontanne, who was watching and no doubt listening to them. She responded by blowing bubbles at him, “She is becoming unruly again.”

“She doesn’t like being locked up in there,” Abe responded, “She was happier when we were researching the temple.”

Manning sighed. Sometimes he wished Abe and Johann hadn’t come back, though at least Johann was on his side for the time being on this issue, “We can’t just let her go. We can’t even verify anything that she’s told you. If that jellyfish thing is real, then why are there not more people like you running around? There are no records anywhere of massive groups or even sightings of your kind. As far as we know, you’re the only ones. You even said it yourself, all those people in that ‘vision’ were like you. Why were there none like her? Why is she the only one with a tail? For all we know, she is trying to trick you.”

Abe had thought about that. It did make sense and it was something he knew he should be concerned about. What if Anne wanted to get him to help free that Jellyfish God thing so that it could start turning humans again? Or what if she planned on killing him once they were in the water alone and she could escape? He told himself that she could have done that at the temple if her wish was death for him. So that left the option that she needed him to free that thing.

The Bureau spent nearly a week at the temple. Gathering data, taking pictures, and taking samples. Abe spent most of his time with Anne. Manning had wanted them to haul her up after every trip down, but Abe said that was a senseless waste of time and energy. He reminded Manning that she had a tracker on right now that was locked around her waist. Sure, she could get it off, but it would take time. He opted to staying in the water with her. In the end, the only agreement that they could come to was a shark cage when it was just them.

Abe agreed to it, but didn’t necessarily follow through with it. Once he was sure the divers and other agents wouldn’t be checking on them, he let her out. They would swim for hours. She showed him all sorts of things. It depressed Abe a little that he knew so little about places that he should have been in all along.

She showed him more visions of the past. Both for her own past and the things the temple had to offer. The one thing she refused to bring up was when the egg had been taken by the diver. He tried to understand it on his own, but he just couldn’t. He finally settled on it being what she wanted to show him all along to get him here, though that didn’t help the possible fact that she might be trying to trick him.

Their nightly swimming brought them closer together. Abe noticed that she became increasingly affectionate the more time they spent together. She would coo at him, nuzzle him, and brush her tail against him. Even going as far as to wrap her arms around him from behind and just rest herself against him. 

Abraham would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the attention. His heart still mourned the Princess Nuala who had sacrificed herself to end her brother. He had felt close to her because they were the same. She had been beautiful, kind, and he felt akin to her.

It was the same with Fontanne. She held a certain enchantment around her, but there was also the fact that she wasn’t just like him, she was him. They were the same. Possibly the only ones of their kind in the world. 

One of the last visions she had shown him was of the island where the temple rested. The giant Jellyfish had unleashed it’s fury on it. Fontanne didn’t seem to know why. They both watched as the creature slaughtered each of the creatures it had helped make. The others like themselves tried to escape it, but it’s fury was unstoppable. It was faster than them and stronger than them. Each one was devoured.

Abe had to wonder why. Did the people anger the creature or was this their purpose all along. To become food.

Since coming back to the Bureau, Anne became cold again. She was friendly enough and didn’t attack anyone that got near the tank, but she kept to herself. Only wanting to communicate with Abe and no one else. He assumed it had something to do with being abandoned like she had before and the guards not feeding her. It probably killed her to have to rely on people to take care of her.

“Even if she is. I can handle it. It would be best for us to find that thing and kill it. If it turns out that she’s just wanting to escape, then so be it. I said it once before, if she wants to leave, she will. I won’t allow her to be kept like a lab rat.”

“Abraham, that isn’t really your choice to make…” Manning started.

“Like hell it isn’t. The public already knows about us. You really want them finding out that you’re keeping a harmless, defenseless mermaid captive for scientific study?” the media would have a field day with it. Not just wanting to see the mermaid, but Abe had no doubts that there would be plenty of people up in arms about it. Manning would never hear the end of it.

“We have a god damn war starting out there and you want to run off on some visions that may or may not be true!” Manning snapped. Johann might have been on his side, but the ecto-man was keeping to himself and just entertaining Anne through the glass. The mermaid seemed to be tired of Johann and the fighting. She swam her way to the top of the tank and peered over the top of it. Manning glanced at her and received a facefull of water, “Dammit!” the man shouted as she sank back down into the water. Her facial muscles didn’t allow for smiling, but Abe was sure if she could she would be right now, “I want her sent to the other facility. She was supposed to go there months ago. You say I’m keeping her as a pet, but you’re not any better.”

“She spat at you because you’re frustrating her. We’re going, Manning. If you don’t like it, then consider this my resignation,” Abe snapped as he started up the ladder to the tank.

“And how exactly do you plan on getting her out of here? Because I certainly won’t authorize it.”

“Plenty of things get done around here without your authorization,” he didn’t say anything more as he climbed into the water. Anne immediately swam over to him and curled around him affectionately. 

Manning shook his head. He was ready to put in his own resignation years ago. This place was going to be the death of him, he was sure of it.

Johann followed the man out, leaving the two mercreatures to themselves, “Director Manning, I believe your worries are valid.”

“Glad someone is on my side for once. First it was Hellboy defying me at every turn and now Abraham since the red monkey is gone. I can’t take this much longer. He was the reasonable one. Now he’s lost his mind,” he waved a hand dramatically, “If he leaves, it’ll be you next.”

“Possibly, but that’s not what I mean,” he’d once been a well respected and regarded member of the Bureau till coming here, “What I mean is that I do not believe the Miss is being honest with any of us, not even Abraham. I think she may have her own motives in mind. You did not see the way she responded to him upon first seeing him. She was angry and scared. Now she wants nothing to do with anyone except him. Strange, do you not think?”

“You’re all strange to me,” he admitted.

“I do not think it wise to let Abraham go off alone with her. Send a team.”

“We don’t have the people to spare for his whims. Those creatures killed over a two thousand people in Germany last week. There were reports of the same kind of earthquakes in three other countries around the world today. Five yesterday. We can’t ignore this for him. If what she has told him is even remotely true, then that think is frozen away for now. We can deal with it later. It is not top priority and we need him here.”

“I understand that, but make a deal with him. Do something for him. We have the tests to prove that she is biologically the same as him. He feels close to her. She is something that can bring him closer to knowing himself. So please, make a deal with him. Give him a week or even two. I can handle the earthquakes for the time being. Send him with a team and we can stay in contact with them. If needed, they can be called back.”

Manning hated making deals with these people. Why couldn’t people just do what he said? Why did they have to question him and defy him?

“Fine, but that girl is being tagged. Not just a tracker. I want a tag put in her. If she does something to anyone on that team, including Abraham, I want her to have to cut off her own tail to get that thing out. She does anything and we will hunt her down. And if they do find that jellyfish, I don’t want it touched. I want it ignored. Found and marked, that’s it. No extracting. No releasing. No trying to kill it. No testing. Nothing. Not even a damn picture. Got it?”

Johann nodded his glass head, “Understood. I shall inform Abraham. Thank you, Director Manning.”


	9. Chapter 9

_Abe ran his fingers along her bare spine. She squirmed and sighed pleasantly in response. The pearly white skin slowly turned blue in color. He didn’t seem to care though. With every stroke of his fingers, the skin turned more and more blue. A small fin started to poke through the dip in her back where her spine was. She cooed softly as he continued to run his own dark blue fingers over the silky skin._

_“Abraham…” her voice was soft and warm sounding._

_He leaned down and pressed his lips to the back of her neck. She squirmed some more under his touch. He felt her neck changing under his lips as the soft skin turned more rigid and gills started to form._

_“Abraham…” she purred this time._

_“Anne…” he moaned back. Abe couldn’t remember having ever been like this with a woman. It felt new and exciting._

_Slowly, and gently, he nudged her to roll over onto her back for him. He admired the deep, blackness of her eyes. One of his hands slid down the side of her body and pulled one of her slowly-scaling legs up against his hip, “Mate with me, Abraham…” she cooed as he leaned down to press small kisses to her collar._

_He felt more than willing to oblige her. His body adjusted a bit between her legs as the last bit of pearly, human skin disappeared to blue and scales. He sat up and look in the deep, wide eyes of his soon to be lover and found himself staring into empty eye sockets._

_Gasping, he let her body go quickly and pushed away, “Mate with me, Abraham…” it was still the same cooing voice he’d come to know from her memories, but it was a monster in front of him._

_He fell back and started to scoot away as she crawled towards him. Her arms crawling and dragging her legs. The flesh dripped away, leaving only bones behind. Her skeletal legs morphing together and and skeleton of a fish tail taking their place._

_“Mate with me, Abraham…” the voice was deepening. The soft cooing was being replaced with low growling._

_Abe found his diving knife missing from his belt. He groped around for anything to fight with, but found nothing other than sand. The skeletal creature was slow though. He managed to get to his feet and took off running. He could still hear it dragging behind him. No matter how far or hard he ran, he could still hear it._

_The sand turned to stone and he looked around to see that he was on the steps of the temple. Over his shoulder, Abe could see the mermaid skeleton still dragging after him. Surely it couldn’t climb the stairs and there would be something of use to fight it inside._

_His bare feet padded the smooth, sand colored stone as he ran through the carved out entrance. Sun poured in from the open ceiling and he stopped dead as he saw the light showering over Fontanne’s human form._

_She was sitting on the pedestal in her white dress with the pink satin bow. Her feet covered in the lost white slippers. Her dark, chocolate colored hair was pulled over one shoulder and she had a smile on her face. He had seen her in this form more than once in her memories and in the visions they shared together at the temple. Normally, he admired her beauty in silence, but this time he stared in horror._

_While she was sitting on the pedestal, the pedestal itself was surrounded with skulls. Sun bleached skulls. Hundreds of them. The toes of her slippered feet brushed them and kicked them aside at random, “...A-anne?”_

_“Mate with me, Abraham…” she called out, holding out one of her hands to him._

“Oh god!” he snapped and heard water slosh around a bit. His eyes cleared and he saw Anne laying out against his chest. He jumped a little and even started to push himself up out of the tub they were laying in together, but he felt a strong, cold hand on his shoulder.

“Are you alright, Abraham?” it was Johann. 

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

“You were making a lot of noise and I thought you might wake Miss. Fontanne,” the German ecto-man stated.

“I’m sorry. I was just having a bad dream.”

“Boat travel always gave me bad dreams when I was in human form. I hope it was nothing too bad.”

Abe looked down at the mermaid laying on him. Her eyes were closed and the breathing apparatus around her neck worked slowly. She seemed completely relaxed and at ease, “No. Nothing too bad.”

“Ja, well, I will get back to my work,” the Geister Mann didn’t have to sleep. 

Once he was gone, Abe looked down at the female in his lap. He remembered getting tired and her tugging on his arm to get him into the tub with her. He’d slid into the water behind her and she immediately laid out against him, not that there was much room for them to lay any other way anyway. She cooed and nuzzled into his chest, stroking her long fingers along his neck. It had felt nice, but now it just made him shiver to think about.

He leaned over a little to look at the side of her face. Checking for signs of bone or decaying skin. There was nothing. Nor were there any signs of her human skin or features, “Just a dream.”

Perhaps it was just telling him that he was getting too comfortable with her attention, “Just a dream…” he repeated before laying his head back against the edge of the tub once again to try to find a more peaceful rest this time.


	10. Chapter 10

“Christ in heaven, it’s cold here. Are you sure this is the place?” even Abe was wrapped in a jacket and pants for once. Everyone, except Johann, was bundled tight. Though even the ecto man did have a jacket on to help keep his metal joints from possibly freezing.

“This is where the other team found her. Unless she’s given you better coordinates, this is where we have to start,” the ship captain stated.

“This is where we part then, my friend,” Johann stated, “I will take the other ship back with a few of the agents. The others will stay here with you and the Miss. Remember Manning’s orders.”

“Right. We find it, we leave it. Just mark the map and come back.”

“Yes. You have two weeks. I do not wish to speak ill of her, but, Abraham, if it comes down to it...the other agents have orders to kill.”

“I understand,” even he felt a little unnerved by her as of late. Especially since the dreams started several nights ago. He found it harder and harder to be close with her. Before the dreams, he had enjoyed the physical attention she gave him. Now all he could think about was those dreams. All of them were the same. 

Their bodies so close together. It always started with her being completely human, but he never was. It was like he was fantasizing about a beautiful woman wanting him for the monster he looked like. He enjoyed how receptive she was to his touches and kisses. Then she would change into that monster again. That horrible skeleton. She’d continue to beg him to have his way with her and mate with her. 

Then the temple. She’d be sitting on skulls. Calling to him. It only took a few dreams to realize that the skulls were not entirely human. The shape of them. They were the same shape and features as his own. There were small differences, but he recognized the one she tended to hold in her hands. It was the skull of the boy he’d seen in the first vision he shared with her at the temple.

He woke up feeling sick to his stomach every time. 

He hoped that being back in the water would help change that. Deep down, Abe knew she wasn’t a danger. He believed everything he saw in her mind. He’d never met anyone that could hide their mind completely from him. 

“Johann, we know your story. We knew Liz’s and Hellboy’s. I’ve even seen her story. The only one we don’t know is mine. If this can get my closer to it, then I’m willing to take that chance.”

“Be safe,” Johann pat his shoulder lightly as the sailors carried Fontanne up from the cargo.

She was as snappy and unruly as she’d been the last time. She hated being handled. They’d tried to sedate her, but it didn’t seem to affect her the way it should. It was the same for himself though. He should have expected that.

“You really going to jump into that water? And you want us to just dump her in?” one of the sailors asked.

“Yes,” Abe started shedding the jacket and clothing till he was in his usual gear. It was cold, but he could bare it. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d dove into water like this before. He just wasn’t sure how long he could last in it. He still had no idea how long Anne had been in it before that other ship found her.

“Alright, but you realize what that kind of water can do to a person, right?”

“Well aware. I’ll go down first. Lower her in, don’t drop her,” he took a deep breath before jumping over the side of the ship. He knew it was going to hurt. He wanted to believe he was prepared for it, but he wasn’t. There was no preparing for it. It would be like jumping into boiling water. Either way, it was going to hurt.

It was like thousands of needles cutting into his body. He shut his eyes tight as he stiffened his muscles out of reflex. He knew creatures lived in these waters, but he had a hard time believing how they could. For all he knew, she’d been trapped here for years.

Slowly, he surfaced and motioned for the men to lower her in. Once in here, there was no coming back up till they absolutely had to. He was trusting her to lead him to this thing as quickly as possible. 

He slipped his arms under her and helped pull her into the cold waters. She tensed and clenched her arms around his neck. She hadn’t been in water like this in several months. Her body had grown used to the mild waters of his tank, “Just a little cold, huh?” he managed to get out. He knew their bodies would adapt, but it would take some time.

Abe removed the breathing apparatus from her neck and sent it back up with the ropes used to lower her, “Here we go,” she nodded a little as he let her slip under the water completely and he followed. She swam a few small circles around him.

He motioned for to lead the way, but she just kept swimming in circles. Part of him wondered if she was about to make good on some of his worries. Would she try to kill him or would she just take off? He knew that she had a new tracker put into her and she knew that too.

But she came up behind him and nuzzled into the back of neck. He reached back and stroked his fingers along her side. He reminded him that they were in this together. She slipped away and let her tail slide along his body as she started off slowly. 

Abraham followed close behind. She would stop every once in a while and look around. The ice here changed almost daily. Pieces would shift and others would break off. The landscape was never one-hundred percent the same. He hoped that it wouldn’t be too hard for her to figure her way around.

The water here was beautiful. The sun going through the ice made the water change all sorts of blue and green shades. It was all amazing. The water was crystal clear near the surface and a cloudy blue directly under the ice. Going down just four or five feet and it became almost pitch black. It was the most amazing thing. There were times when he would lose sight of her completely due to her coloring and markings, but she would always show back up. Usually behind him with a playful look in her eyes. It helped him forget about the cold for just a few moments.

At one point, he pointed up towards a hole in the ice above them. They both surfaced and he shivered in the cold air. Somehow, it felt warmer in the water, “Are we close at all?” it felt like they had been swimming for hours. They had gone in while the sun was up and already it was down. He was hungry, but he hadn’t even seen a fish. He wasn’t sure how long she could go, but he couldn’t go for much longer without at least a meal of some kind, “We need to find food soon and somewhere to rest.”

Abe always regarded himself as in good health, but she had put him to shame. She didn’t look tired or hungry in the least. He was sure she could go several days longer than he could, “Is there anything here?”

She nodded and dove back into the water as he rested back against the ice. She was gone about thirty minutes and resurfaced holding a wriggling fish. He’d researched some of the species around here and knew it to be the Emerald Rockcod. A fish that lived anywhere from 0 to 700m and could survive these kinds of temperatures. It was a commercial fish in other cold areas. This one was about fourteen inches long.

Abe had prepared himself for the fact that he might have to eat uncooked fish, but the prospect of it now was unsettling. He watched as she grabbed it’s head and pulled tight till there was a small snap. The fish stopped moving and she offered it to him, “Guess this is it, huh?” he took a deep breath before taking the dead fish from her. He wished for rotten eggs right now. 

Fontanne seemed to understand how difficult this was for him. She moved up next to him and laid her head on his shoulder. She nuzzled into his neck and stroked her fingers along his side.

The first few bites made him gag. It was the strangest texture and feeling in his mouth. The sin broke more easily than he thought it would. Abe told himself that his teeth were made for this. That if he had been freed the way she was, that this was the sort of thing he would be living on anyway. That helped him get down those few bites. After that, it was easier to manage.

“Are we close at all?” he asked as he went to toss the fins, bones, and head; but she took them from him. He couldn’t manage to make himself eat those, but she seemed to not want them to go to waste.

She nodded as she chomped down on the remains. She raised a hand and pointed off to the south, “Great. Colder waters. I should have expected that. You done?” which earned him another nod as she finished off the fish head.

They both dove back into the icy waters. When they were finished with this, he was tempted to come back here just to study. The place was truly beautiful. Even the cold wasn’t bothering him anymore, though that could have been a bad sign too.

Abe wasn’t sure how much longer he could go. The light shining through the ice wasn’t lighting their way anymore. She seemed to have no problem with it, but he was having trouble seeing. He supposed her years in the water had developed her eyes better than his. Just another thing she had over him. It brought back those worries again. She could leave him here to die and it would be at least a week before the team thought to start looking. They would eventually catch her, but he would be dead.

He was surprised when she rounded on him and grabbed the rope from his waste. He hadn’t brought much with, but rope and a knife were things he wasn’t about to come without. She looped it around her own waist and held the other end out to him. He got the point. It would keep them together in the dark. He had to respect her thinking, though he worried that he would slow her down. 

His worries came true as he noticed the light poking through the ice. The rope would tug every now and then as she tried to keep him up to her pace. There were no holes in the ice above them that he could see. He wished for a rest, but there was no point if there were no openings. She’d fed him more strange fish along the way, but his body was not responding well to them. Abe wished he’d prepared himself better for it by at least eating the fish she had back at the Bureau. His body wasn’t happy with the cold, the travel, lack of food, and the strangeness of the new food.

The only had one encounter with what could have been considered a vicious creature. It was some kind of shark. As far as he knew, there were very few sharks that could survive this kind of water. Then again, the ocean was a mysterious place. There were new species found every day. The shark was slow moving, likely to conserve energy in the low temperature. It attempted to snap at them, but even in his weakened state, he was quicker. It didn’t chase.

Abe started to notice a lack of fish though. As few as there were here, there seemed to be less than before. The ice was thicker too, pushing them deeper. The water, despite being deeper, was brighter blue than it should have been. He could have sworn it was getting warmer and that there was more light.

She pointed to a large ice block. It was longer than the rest of the ice and it looked like it was glowing. As they got closer, he stared in shock. He’d seen the creature in the visions, but he wasn’t prepared on how big it would be.

The jellyfish beast was huge. The fins he’d seen in the vision were fanned out in the ice. If he didn’t know what it was, he would find it beautiful. Even knowing what it was, he still found it a bit nice to look at. The closer they got, the warmer it felt and that felt nice. Abe wanted to ask, but speaking underwater wasn’t generally very easy.

Anne tugged the rope. Apparently he’d stalled for too long. He followed and fished the marker out of one of his pouches. Manning had been very specific of what to do. Put the tracker on the thing and come back. Nothing else. Abe hated that, but he wasn’t even sure what to do with it now that he saw it. Perhaps it was for the best to just leave it here and just keep an eye on it. Manning was right, so long as it was frozen here, it couldn’t hurt anyone. He just needed to see it.

Once up against the ice, he realized just how big it is. It was nearly three or four times his height. The bulged bell had the same black markings that both he and Fontanne had on their heads. The fins looked like her tail fins. He wondered how something like this got trapped here. The temple was obviously a more tropical, so how did it end up here?

Abe doubted Anne knew. Just more answers that lead to more questions.

He used his knife to dig a small hole in the ice and placed the tracker into it. The little light on it blipped to let him know it was working. Mission successful, for the most part. He had no idea where on a map they were and he was sure the swim back was going to feel like it was twice as long as getting here.

Anne was running her fingers along the ice and he reached over to stop her. Manning had said no touching. But she didn’t stop. She even motioned for him to do the same. Just like in the temple. Would touching it bring on some vision of the past again? Maybe it would show him how the creature had become trapped here.

He supposed there was no harm in it.


	11. Chapter 11

He was back at the temple. Underwater again. It didn’t take him long to realize that not only was Fontanne floating in the water next to him, rope still around their waists, but she was also swimming around the pillars in front of him. It was her memory again. 

Everything was the same. Even the way she swam around the pillars and the way she curled around the pedestal that the egg was sitting on. He watched the whole scene again. The diver and her short lived fight with him. He watched the diver make his way back to the submarine again. This time though, it didn’t stop there. They followed this time. 

Right up into the submarine with the diver. It was very old fashioned, but Abe wasn’t all that focused on the structure. He was more concerned about the diver. Several other men were there to take the egg. They put it into a container of sea water immediately before assisting the man in removing the heavy and large suit.

“Very good job, Langdon. Were there any difficulties?”

Abe saw the diver finally. He looked as if he were in his early fifties or late forties. He had blond hair that was slicked back and came to rest around his shoulders. The man, apparently named Langdon, was the same height as he was. He had a strong chin and deep blue eyes. If Abe’s idea of the time frame was correct, then he seemed a very common man for his time.

“Just one. A mermaid. She tried to kill me.”

“Was she beautiful? The ones off the coast of Florida were beautiful.”

“And tried to rip our faces off,” Langdon responded, “She was pretty, but nothing like the others. I think she might have been Beaulieu’s daughter. Didn’t he say she had escaped?”

Abe looked over at Anne and saw the long look on her face. He had no doubts she had seen this before, but since it had not directly involved her, she had no memories of it and so could not show him.

“It’s possible. I’m sure he’ll be over joyed to hear that she’s still alive.”

“I’m not so sure about that. Perhaps I should have tried to capture her. No sense in trying now, she is completely mindless now. Just an animal,” Langdon stated before looking over at the egg, “Let’s get it back.”

The vision went fuzzy for a moment and he realized that they were somewhere else now. A house somewhere. The room was dark and all the men were sitting at a round table. There were strange pictures on the walls. Not just of creatures, but of other men. Anne’s father and Verne were in several of them.

Caul was standing at the table, the egg sitting on a small pillow in front of him. Abe could hear strange sounds coming from outside the window. Anne was standing next to him. Her human form again. Looking at her, he got a shiver up his spine as he thought about her with the skulls. He shoved that aside considering the situation. 

She walked over to the window and pulled the curtain aside a little and motioned for him to come look too. What he saw was horrifying. The people in the streets below were screaming and running into their houses. The skies were clouded with black and grey clouds. Instead of rain falling, there were frogs. Hundreds of frogs fell from the skies. Logically, if that could even happen, the frogs should have died on impact, but they didn’t. He could hear them all croaking. 

“We should decide on who it will be,” one of the men stated and Abe turned his attention back to them.

Langdon responded, “My wife. Edith. No one will miss her. Her family was happy to see her married off and haven’t come to see her since.”

“I’m shocked. After what we heard of the Beaulieu’s wife after using it on his daughter, I’m surprised you would chose someone so close to you.”

“I care for her and that is why I want this for her. She is in a constant state of melancholy. She believes her life worthless. Best to give her a sense of worth. Beaulieu was wrong for not keeping his own wife in line and for letting that Verne boy help,” Abe moved closer to Langdon as the man’s blue eyes turned on the two of them. His face twisted in confusion, “Demon…” he muttered.

“What’s wrong Langdon?” one of the others asked as the blond man took a step away from Abe.

“Can he see us?” Abraham asked Anne.

The dark haired girl looked just as confused, “He never could before.”

“I see you. Both of you. An angel and a demon. Oh god…” Langdon’s face had horror written all over it, “Have you two come to punish me?”

“Langdon, who are you speaking to?”

“Do you not see them? It is Beaulieu’s daughter. I remember her pictures. She’s here to punish me for taking the egg. She’s going to punish all of us. She’s brought a demon with her,” the man was becoming hysterical. He stumbled back as Abe tried to step forward and knocked the egg from it’s pillow. Without thinking, he grabbed it in his hands to keep it from smashing on the floor.

“I’m not a demon…” Abe tried to say.

“My voice. The demon has my voice,” Langdon stammered out, ignoring that the egg was beginning to glow, “This is my punishment. Our punishment.”

“Please,” Fontanne tried to speak as well, but the blond man screamed loudly and Anne covered her ears. The man’s hands started turning blue. Abe realized what was happening and wrapped an arm around Anne’s waist to pull her away.

“Langdon, let go of the egg! Let go now!” the other men were shouting, but his hands seemed fused to it, “Water! We need to get him water!”

The vision ended there. They were both back in the water, in front of the ice. He felt his gills working harder than usual. He looked over at Anne who seemed more shaken than usual. Apparently she wasn’t used to people in these visions talking back to her.

It was hard to do, but he needed to know, “Am I Langdon?” it was a simple question and he’d been expecting her to shake her head, instead she nodded, “How?” she reached out and stroked his chin. Langdon had the same chin and had even mentioned their voices. How strange would it really be for it to be true? Not very.

Abe looked at the frozen creature once more before motioning that they should leave. Anne seemed to agree. 

Answers that lead to nothing more than questions. It seemed that nothing would ever be completely answered. The more time he spent with Fontanne, the more and less he seemed to know about his own life.

It did give him something though. He had a name. Langdon. 

And he had, at one time, a wife.


	12. Chapter 12

Little Port, Rhode Island. It was a small town and overly average. A little community that mostly kept to itself and where most of the people made their living off the sea coast. Nothing really stood out, but he knew it had to be here.

Langdon and Edith. They weren’t overly common names and even less common to be put together. It hadn’t taken Abe long to track a record down. A marriage certificate from Little Port. The full names were Langdon Everett Caul and Edith Howard, Caul after marriage. The birth certificate for Langdon said he was born a few hours inland from Little Port. Edith, however, was born there. 

The death certificates were interesting. Langdon was declared dead legally after his wife reported him missing for two years. Edith was declared legally insane, but before her family could commit her, she threw herself into the ocean, committing suicide. The news clipping announcing their wedding had apparently been a big deal for Little Port. After all, scientists didn’t come by often to marry simple town girls. 

Once he had the information and was sure that it was the right person, Abe made the trip on his own. Johann had asked him not to, to stay and focus instead. He couldn’t though. Even if it meant leaving Fontanne at the Bureau on her own. Johann would be there to take care of her, but that didn’t ease the mermaid’s feelings.

Anne threw such a fit about it that she wouldn’t even let him into the tank with her. If he tried, she would just huddle up in the corner and growl at him and snap her teeth at him if he got close. He told her that she was being childish and selfish, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. Johann made a few comments about going to bed angry and lovers quarrels. Just because he felt close with Anne didn’t mean they were together that way. It was hard to make Johann understand.

Abe had the right to know his own history. If he truly was Langdon, then he could find out everything about his life. Maybe he could even find someone still alive that was related to him. There were no records of Edith ever having a child, so he doubted he had any children or grandchildren running around. But maybe a distant cousin or something.

“Hello, I’m Abraham. We spoke over the phone?” he was used to the shocked look the librarian gave him as she looked up from her desk. Just because people knew of the Bureau and himself now didn’t mean that they were okay with it, “Sorry, my appearance is a little unconventional.”

“J-just a little,” she stammered out, “You...you called about information for Langdon and Edith Caul?”

“Yes. Anything you can tell me about them. You said you were the town historian, so you do know of them, right?”

“Yes. Sad story really. Langdon wasn’t a bad man, good for Edith in fact. My great-great grandmother was friends with her. Her family were fishers, like most here. She was a very odd sort of girl. Kept to herself. Very quiet. Before she passed away, my grandmother used to say that there was something wrong with Edith. She was a constant pessimist. Always thinking of the bad that could happen in life. At least till Langdon showed up.”

Abe found it all interesting, “What of Langdon himself?”

“Curious man,” she pulled out some old news clippings and laid them out for him. One had a picture of Langdon and Edith on their wedding day. He couldn’t stop staring at it. Edith was a simple looking girl. Where Fontanne had been, what he considered, an unrivaled beauty as a human; Edith was much more plain, “Scientist. He was nearly seventy when he came here.”

“Seventy? But he barely looks fifty in this picture.”

“Like I said, he was a curious man. He had strange company too. Foreign men would come to his house day and night. They never spoke to anyone but him. Here is a picture of the house he had built for Edith and himself…” she pushed forward the picture. It was a huge house, “Mansion really. Took two years for it to be built. Most beautiful house in the town at the time. Run down now, of course. Strange craftsmanship and no one wanted to go near it once Edith threw herself off the back balcony into the water. It’s not a very safe house. The cliffeside is always shaking off. That balcony fell off about twenty years ago.”

“Why not just demolish it?”

“It’s sort of a landmark these days. The Caul house that was built for his depressed wife.”

“What happened to Langdon?”

“No telling. He abandoned poor Edith. Left for a trip, as he did commonly, and just never came back. Being left alone in that big house. With her husband gone, she fell back into her old ways. Langdon brought light into her life and with him gone, she lost that light.”

Abe felt a tightness in his chest. This had been his wife. The woman he’d vowed to be with forever. A girl, who apparently, had nothing to live for except her husband. He remembered Langdon’s words, his words, he’d wanted to help give her a feeling of worth. Fontanne’s father had said he wanted to make her a goddess. In their hearts, they had wanted to give something good to the ones they cared for. Edith had been his life. He realized that now.

Langdon could have just stayed with her. Given her children. Been her husband. No. Instead he went chasing after old gods. Telling himself that it was the only way to give her life purpose. Perhaps he hadn’t thought himself man enough to be the husband she needed. Had Anne’s father felt the same way? That he couldn’t give her the life he felt she deserved, so try to ascend her to something else?

“The house is still there then?”

“Yes, but not very safe, I’m afraid. I really wouldn’t recommend going to it. Like I said, it’s not very structurally sound. The men who built it were either very creative or very lazy.”

“I just want to see it.”

The woman eyed him for a moment before nodding, “East side of town. Dirt road will lead up the hill. You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you for your time.”

The woman had been right, he couldn’t miss it. The house was three stories of rot. It looked nothing like it had in the picture anymore. There was graffiti on it from local kids. Signs that squatters had been there recently. Fire pits in random places outside and inside. Trash everywhere, “Landmark. Right…” he shook his head a little as he headed further inside.

He could hear rain starting outside. The weather hadn’t said anything about rain, but he was fine with it. Just because he didn’t need to live in his tank anymore didn’t mean he didn’t like the water. The sound of the rain hitting the wood sounded nice. 

As old and rotted as the house was, it felt good to be inside it. He pulled out the picture of Langdon and Edith from his jacket pocket. Even with her smile, she looked sad. Langdon’s body language was more than enough to confirm his feelings for her. The way his arm circled her and his other hand held onto hers. It was the same way he held Anne much of the time. Just further proof that it really was him. Langdon had been his previous life.

“Langdon?”

The voice was soft. Like Anne’s, but meaker. The girl speaking was average height, sickly paled skin, and dull green eyes. It was Edith. His wife, but he didn’t want to admit that, “W-who are you?”

“My love, it’s me,” she moved closer to him, but he stepped back, “Langdon, you’ve come back to me. I knew you would. I kept everything the way you like it.”

Abe realized the room around him wasn’t the same. It was restored. Beautiful and filled with books. The desk was restored and covered with various papers and a box of cigars. There were no windows or doors, “Who are you?” he asked again.

“It’s me, Langdon. It’s me, Edith. Oh, my love, I’ve missed you so…” he was backed up against the bookshelf now. He couldn’t back away from her this time. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned up to press their lips together.

She was right. She was Edith. He could feel her and touch her. She was real. His wife, “Edith…” he muttered her name as she broke the kiss.

“I kept it all the way you like. Your books, your cigars, your papers...Everything. Just like you left them,” she took one of his hands and lead him towards the small sitting couch, “You’ve had a hard trip. Lay down, my love. I’ll take care of you.”

“It has been hard…” he said lightly, mostly to himself. Being taken care of, that sounded nice.

She helped him lay out on the couch before going over to the desk to get his cigars. Abe didn’t have a habit of smoking, but it seemed normal now. He took it without question and even lit it. The smell of it was nice. The smoke felt warm on his face, “Where are the windows?” he asked softly.

“Don’t worry about them. It’s just us here, my love. Just us and only us. Forever. I’ll take care of you,” he sat up just enough for her to sit under him. She stroked his head gently as he laid in her lap, “You’ll never have to leave me again, Langdon.”

He wasn’t sure how long they laid there. It didn’t really matter. She smelled like water, “…Anne…” he said softly.

“What is it, my love? Who is Anne?”

“I don’t…I don’t know.”

“I think that’s the name of the cafe owner’s daughter. My love, you wouldn’t leave me for another girl, would you?” there was a sadness in her voice as she asked. As if she feared this situation more than once.

“Of course not. Cafe girl. I remember now. She spilled water on me.”

“Clumsy girl,” Edith continued to stroke his head, “You’ve not been taking care of your hair. There are knots in it.”

“Hair? I don’t have any hair.”

“Of course you do. I’ve always loved your hair, Langdon.”

He shook his head a little as he sat up, “No. No hair.”

“Yes, Langdon, you do,” she reached out and stroked the sides of his face. He felt her fingers tangle in his hair. His hair.

Lifting his hands up, he saw the flesh tone of them, “I have hair. Yes…I’m sorry, Edith. I must be losing my mind,” he shook his head a little and laid back down in her lap, “I suppose it’s been a hard day.”

“What happened, Darling?” she leaned down to kiss his forehead, “Tell me everything.”

He chuckled a little, “I can’t even remember what it was.”

“Would you like a drink? Perhaps it would help to relax you.”

“I…I don’t drink,” or did he. He couldn’t remember, “Do I?”

“Of course you do, Langdon. I bring you a drink every night with your cigar. Even when you’re away on your trips, I still set out your drink and cigar,” she smiled down at him, “I can’t bare not to do it. Even when I know you won’t be here.”

“You’re a good wife, Edith,” he reached up and stroked her muddy brown hair. It felt wet, “Is it raining?”

“Hn?” she perked an eyebrow at him, “No.”

“Your hair is wet.”

“Oh,” she reached up and touched her own hair, “No it’s not. Let me get you a drink, Langdon.”

She moved out from under him and headed for his desk again. His eyes scanned the room as he sat up. Just walls of books. No windows. No doors. Just books, a couch, his desk, and something covered in a black sheet, “Edith, what’s that?” he pointed to the sheet.

“It’s nothing, Darling,” the smile faded from her face as she watched him move from the couch and towards the sheet, “It’s really nothing, Langdon. Nothing to concern yourself with.”

“What is it, Edith? Just tell me,” he insisted as he moved closer to it.

The mousy woman dropped the drink glass as she rushed around the desk and towards him. It shattered on the floor boards as she threw herself in front of him and the sheet, “It’s nothing!”

“Edith! Stop it,” he demanded as she wrapped her arms around his neck and tried to hold him in place, “If it’s nothing, then just let me see it.”

“You’ll leave me again, Langdon. I won’t let that happen again. Please sit back down, Darling. Let me take care of you,” she pleaded with him. Her fingers tangling in his hair and her face burying into his neck, “Don’t look, Langdon. Please, don’t look.”

She was smaller than him and easy to move as he kept towards the sheet. His fingers reached out as she sobbed into his neck and shoulder. He grabbed the silk cloth and tugged it, “A mirror…” he said softly.

“Langdon! Please don’t!” she cried into his shoulder, but it was too late.

He saw himself. Not as Langdon, but as Abraham. Silky, blue-green skin, deep black eyes, green gills on his neck, and all. Wrapped around his neck and draped against his shoulder wasn’t the mousy girl he knew to be his wife. Instead it was a corpse wrapped in a tattered and rotting dress. Water dripped from what was left of it’s hair and clothing. 

“Edith…”

“Cover it back up, Langdon. Please. Just cover it. We can be together like this.”

“Edith, you’re dead.”

“No!” she sobbed and he watched the corpse in the reflection heave with despair. 

“I’m sorry, my wife. It’s my fault you’re dead.”

“Stop it, Langdon! Just stop it!”

Abe reached up and pat the back of her rotting skull, “Edith, you threw yourself from the balcony. Into the ocean. You did it because I abandoned you.”

“That’s not true, Langdon! You always come back to me! Always! You would never leave me!”

“I’m sorry, Edith. I wanted a better life for you,” Abe knew he did. He knew that he had loved her and cared for her, “I wasn’t good enough for you and in the end I proved that. Edith, you need to move on. You cannot keep waiting for me.”

“I don’t want to leave you…” she sobbed, “We’ll be together again, won’t we?”

“…I wish I could say we will, Edith, but I can’t promise that. I’ve done terrible things.”

“Do I have to leave?”

Abe nodded, “Yes. Turn around, Edith.”

The sobbing woman in his arms, the crying corpse in the mirror, slowly pulled away from him and turned towards the mirror. Her head hung down as she held off looking as long as possible. Finally, Abraham’s hand tilted her chin up and she gasped at the sight of her own rotting, waterlogged face, “Langdon…” she whimpered. The corpse of his wife was no longer just in the mirror. It was in his arms too, “Can I go to the window now?”

He nodded and lead her towards a wall previous covered in books, but was now replaced with doors leading to the balcony that he had seen in the pictures, “This way.”

“Will it hurt?”

“I’m not sure,” he said softly as he opened the doors. It was still raining outside, “I’m sorry for the life I gave you.”

“You made me happier than anyone else ever had. I do not regret marrying you,” she pulled away from him and stepped out into the rain. He watched her walk out onto the balcony. She turned to face him for a moment before looking back out at the waters of the ocean. 

Abe watched as she jumped from the balcony. Her hands clasped to her decaying chest. What was left of her hair flew out behind her head as she faded into the air as she dropped to the water. The balcony faded as her body did. Leaving Abe to stare out of the torn out side of the wall to the ocean. 

“I’m sorry, Edith…” he said softly. 

For once since meeting Fontanne, he had an answer that didn't have more questions attached to it. He knew who he was. The kind of person he’d been. Most importantly, he’d caused the death of the only person who he had cared for. 

He could feel it in his heart even now.


	13. Chapter 13

The move to Colorado was a difficult one. There was a lot of equipment to move and a lot of work to be done to the new facility. It was high up in the mountains, which meant more security than they had near New York City. It was an old shelter that had been built many years ago and was nearly triple the size of their previous location. 

It had been nearly two months since Abraham returned from Little Port. The move had taken a great deal of time and he had been using that as an excuse not to visit Anne. While still in New York, he had spent all of his free time in his private room and tank alone. If he needed something from the library, he sent someone else to retrieve it for him. He also refused to speak about what he found out in Little Port. Even Johann was only told the barest of information about it.

They’d been in the new location for a month and he set up a new room for himself. The rooms here were larger than the ones in New York. He’d paid for the remaining items at the Caul mansion in Little Port to be restored and sent to him in Colorado. With the move, he was able to make the room more like the library he’d seen at the mansion. Most of the books from the library had been moved in there for him. He even had an actual bed put in and requested clothing beyond his usual diving shorts.

As for Fontanne, he knew they had set her up in a more private room as well with a tank of her own this time. At Johann’s request, the higher ups in the Bureau had granted permission for Abe and Anne to stay together in the same facility instead of her being sent up further north. They determined that it would be emotionally unwell to separate them, not to mention easier to study them both if they were together. 

They weren’t together though. Abe hadn’t set eyes on her once since he returned. He had his reasons for it. Anytime he went near her room, he remembered the sadness in Edith’s voice as she asked if he would ever leave her for another woman. Even though many years dead, he felt he had a duty to the wife he had abandoned. He couldn’t stand the hard knot in his stomach whenever he thought about Anne and how close they had been at times. He could only imagine how Edith would feel if she knew that her husband had been very intimately been holding another woman the way he had Anne.

"Abraham, Director Manning and I pulled quite a lot of strings to ensure that Miss. Anne was kept in the same facility as you because we believed that was what you wanted," Johann's voice got his attention back from his thoughts and the merman looked over at his friend joining him at the lunch table. Johann had no need to eat, but came here to socialize.

"It is. The other facilities would have experimented on her and hurt her. I would rather her be close and safe from that," she didn't need to endure what he had.

"Then why have you not visited her since your trip to Rhode Island? What happened there?"

He shook his head, "Nothing to concern yourself about, Johann. I haven't visited her because she's been unruly."

"She is unruly because you do not visit her."

"She was unruly before that."

"Because she did not want you to go on that trip. If you would just explain yourself to her, I am sure she would be understanding. Afterall, you and her are likely the only ones of your kind left and she is sure to know that."

"Johann, and I say this as a friend but, mind your own damn business," with that, he climbed up from his seat and headed off to his room. He spent a lot of time alone in there. Abe used to enjoy taking all kinds of field assignments, but he couldn't bring himself to do it lately. All he wanted to do was lay in his bed and look at the things he had sent over from the Caul mansion.

He picked up the cigar case with the initials L.E.C. engraved into the metal and opened it to pull out one of the cigars. Before going to Little Port, Abe hadn't been able to stand the smell of Hellboy's cigars, but now he found the smell and even smoking them relaxing. The same went for the cognac. The two smells reminded him of the smell in the mansion when he'd seen Edith's ghost.

He lit the cigar and headed over to the bed he'd taken to laying in more than his small tank. Lately, he could barely sleep anymore. When he did, it was just nightmares about how Edith must have lived her last few days before committing suicide over her husband's abandonment. The other nightmares were of Fontanne. Both her sitting on a throne of skulls and her skeletal mermaid form chasing him. Also of his guilt over having felt close to her.

Abe didn’t want to see her, yet at the same time he felt the overwhelming need to still take care of her. He felt somehow responsible for her. The full memories of his previous life hadn’t come back to him yet, but he knew enough to know that he’d been part of the same group that her father and Jules Verne had been. Men trying to raise old gods with foolish and dangerous ambitions. He was the one who had taken the egg and he even admitted to the other men that he had known the mermaid was Fontanne. It was the ideals of men like him that had turned her into what she was. For that, she was his responsibility.

However, he felt that he could take care of her well enough just knowing she was here and not being dissected in a lab somewhere in Canada.

It was easy to make excuses not to see her. The world was going to hell and he had other things to focus on. She was safe in her room and tank, so he could take care of other things instead. Right now, they were dealing with something more important than his personal issues. That was why his desk was piled high with paper work.

It had started years ago, when Hellboy was still with the team and when Liz and the big ape were still okay with just being friends. They’d investigated a haunting together and it went horribly wrong. The old woman had said that the ghost of her husband was still in their house. That he and her sons had died in a horrible shipping accident nearly thirty years prior.

It turned out that the old woman was actually dead herself and the ghost of her husband was actually some mad man trying to summon Ogdru Jahad, the same creature Rasputin had. They found out much later after the Sammael incident that the mad man had been Rasputin. The woman’s son’s had been transformed into some kind of frog creatures that were living in the cave system under the house. The ghost of her husband really was there, but he was there trying to save the souls of his family.

In the end, the ghost had possessed Abe’s body in order to take down the mad man. Rasputin swore that one day Abe would suffer the same fate. Liz had torched the beast that had been summons and Hellboy had handled the boys turned frog beasts. The B.P.R.D. still checked up on the place from time to time to make sure nothing was going on.

However, a year ago, more frog creatures started turning up. They weren’t nearly as strong or as advanced as the ones they had met before, but they were still dangerous and they were breeding fast. It was getting harder and harder to keep it secret from the public. Manning was dealing with the press every day about it. The Bureau itself was public, but some of the things they handled were not. The world would go into a panic if they knew the reality of the world they lived in. With mutant frog creatures running around and needing to be taken care of, it was easy to come up with reasons not to visit Fontanne in her new home.

In fact, they had one of the frog creatures in a lab downstairs right now to study. As well as half a dozen of the eggs they had collected before torching the last nest they found. 

With his cigar finished, he headed down to the lab. He took care to avoid the hallway that went past her room. Sure, it meant an extra ten minutes walking to do that, but he was used to it now, “How’s it doing today, Kate?”

The blond woman had filtered through every B.P.R.D. site in the world. She had started with the Bureau in the early eighties as a consultant on folklore and paranormal activities. It was Hellboy who had convinced her to step out from behind the desk and take on field work. She damned the man at least once a week for it, but everyone knew she had loved it. She soon moved up to Director of Field Operations of the western sites. Most recently, she had moved up to Special Liaison to Enhanced Talent Agents. Basically, she was in charge of the ‘freaks’ like him and Johann.

With the move to the new facility, she was a permanent member of their team from now on.

“Same as yesterday. Just making noises and drawing those weird symbols all over the place. We still haven’t found anyone that can translate it yet,” she shrugged a little as they both walked over to the tank like cage that it was being held in. Someone had given it a marker a few days ago and almost every free inch of the glass was covered in weird writing by the next morning, “At least it’s not violent. Seems like once they are alone, they calm down quite a bit.”

“If only we could get them all to abandon each other. Sadly, I don’t think that’s going to happen. They destroyed that whole town. No one was left alive,” he shook his head a little, “It was a blood bath.”

“I know, Abe. I was there.”

He knelt down and looked over the drawings, “Anything about the eggs yet?”

“No, but just like Sammael’s eggs, they are susceptible to fire.”

They’d been torching them for months, “Yeah, but we already knew that,” he heard her sniff behind him, “Something wrong?”

“Have you been smoking?”

He sighed, “You’re not my mother, Kate. No one got onto Hellboy about his cigars.”

“Whatever. Just out of character for you,” she seemed to drop it.

“Some of these drawings look a little like the carvings at that temple I went to.”

“The one underwater? The one with Anne?”

“Yeah. They had a distinctive curve to the markings that these ones have. Especially this set here,” he tapped on the glass a little before looking up. The frog creature was looking him in the eye, “Hello there. Can you understand me?” he usually didn’t get this close to it. For the most part, he just wanted to be rid of all of them and be done with it. Abe was smart, but he had no real interest in learning to much about these things. He knew what they were connected to and he just wanted it over with. 

The creature was the size of the Old English Mastiff dog that was in the world record book as being the largest. It was named Zorba and was 37 inches tall and nearly eight feet from nose to tail. Because of that, the staff here had taken to calling this one Zorba, despite Kate’s repeated efforts to have them not treat it like a pet.

Zorba’s body was that of an oversized frog. The swamp green skin was stretched tight over lean muscles. It’s yellow eyes stared right into Abe’s black ones. It’s mouth opened wide and a long tongue came out. It was covered in bumps and was the strangest yellow-green color. Abe shuddered a little and then covered his ear holes as it started making the most annoying and loud noise Abe had ever heard.

He and Kate stumbled back and it suddenly stopped, “The hell was that?” she snapped, “It’s never done that before.”

“I guess it doesn’t like me.”

Kate rubbed her ears a little, “Guess so. That was awful. What the hell do you think that was? I’ve never heard anything like that before. I think you should keep your distance from it.”

“I do to. I’ll just focus on the eggs.”

“Anyway, the drawings. You said they were like the ones at the temple. I’ve seen the pictures. It’s beautiful. If we ever go back, I’m going down with you and Anne. I’ll get pictures of these and you can take them up to Anne. I know she can’t talk, but Johann says you’ve always been able to communicate better with her.”

Abe swallowed hard and shook his head, “That’s not necessary. She doesn’t know what they mean. She made that clear when we visited the temple. That place was a few thousand years old and she is less than two hundred. That language is well dead.”

“If it’s dead, then how does that thing know it,” Kate pointed over, “Just take the pictures to Anne and see if she can figure anything out. Maybe you two can do your connection thing with your hands and see something.”

He sighed, “It doesn’t work that way. We only see things that whatever we’re touching has seen. All we’re going to see from a picture is who took the picture and possibly the process it takes to make photo film.”

Kate shrugged, “It was just a suggestion. Another suggestion is that, maybe, you should go up to talk to her anyway.”

He shot a look at her, “You’ve been talking to Johann, huh? Please mind your own business, Kate.”

“Whatever,” she threw her hands up a little, “I’m going to go check on the eggs. If we can figure out how long it takes from laying to hatching, we might be able to get ahead of these things,” Abe shook his head and started for the door, “But! I just wanna say that you two might be the only ones of your kind in the world. You’ve been alone in the world, but at least you’ve had friends like Hellboy and Johann around. How long has she been alone without anyone? If you’re going to keep avoiding her, then you might as well let her go back to the ocean or send her to the Canadian facility. If you’d like, I could even ask her which she’d prefer.”

“I’m only going to say this nicely once more. Mind your own business, Kate. Anne is here and she’s staying here.”

“Very well. I was just trying to be a friend. Friends point out things to other friends. It’s only right. But you’ve made yourself clear. I won’t say anything about it anymore.”

“Thank you. Maybe you could pass that sentiment on to Johann,” he left it at that as he headed from the room.

It seemed like nothing he did was right these days. He’d wanted to go down to the lab to check up on the creature. Instead, he was confronted by yet another person he considered a friend. He knew he should just tell them what was going on, but the last thing he wanted was the questions. He knew they’d want to know about Langdon, but he wouldn’t be able to answer them. The only things he knew about his former life was random memories of Edith and the things he’d seen about his transformation into what he was now. He didn’t want to deal with questions he couldn’t answer. Not right now.

Fontanne was safe where she was and she was being well taken care of. The Bureau wasn’t what it used to be. Sure, they still did their experiments and things of that nature, but they’d never hurt her. Not while he, Johann, and Kate were here. The people here knew him and they were more sensitive to this sort of thing.

Back in his room, he picked up the newly framed picture of Langdon and Edith on their wedding day. Abe couldn’t remember it, but he did remember first meeting her. He didn’t know why he’d chosen Little Port, likely because of the ocean access though. But he was there. New to the town and deciding on a location for his home. 

Edith’s family were like many of the families there, fishers. Her, her mother, and her sisters took care of selling whatever her father and brothers caught each day. He saw her sitting on a box next to the stall. She was just staring off into the distance. Out at the ocean. She looked so sad. While everyone else in the market was chatting, laughing, and enjoying their day; she seemed affected by some sort of melancholy as she watched the water.

He remembered smiling at her, but she just stared off. Her eyes were so cold and lifeless. Her mother told him that she was sick and there was no use in trying to speak with her. Still, he tried anyway. For days. Langdon became obsessed with getting some kind of reaction from the poor girl. Day after day, she would just sit on that box and stare off to the ocean. Never acknowledging him in the least. 

It wasn’t till one day he gave up and didn’t go to the market to see her that he got a reaction from her. He’d been staying at the local Inn while plans were being drawn up for a house for him. He was drawing up contracts for a piece of land he’d bought just outside the town near a wooded area when she knocked on his door. 

He words rang out in his mind, _“You didn’t come to see me today, Mr. Caul.”_

Abe had clear memories of the scandal it caused in the small town after that. Edith stayed with Langdon day in and day out. An unmarried girl of her age staying in the company of a gentleman was inappropriate. Langdon didn’t care and Edith didn’t seem to either. A month later, they were married. 

The photo showed her the way he had seen her. Her eyes were warm and she was smiling.

Abe sighed and set the photo down before digging through one of the drawers of the desk. He pulled out a small bottle of pills and stared at them for a minute. Sleeping pills. It was about the only way he could sleep these days without having dreams. He hated that he had been resorted to this, but it was the only option he had. It was either these or nightmares of his wife and Anne.

“I’m sorry, Edith,” he said with a heavy sigh as he downed one of the pills and made his way over to the bed. 

His eyes wandered to his personal iso tank and he debated climbing into it. No. He couldn’t. Abraham was a man and he didn’t need to be confined in that way anymore. He was even considering having it removed completely. When he was ready, he’d even start going by his real name. 

While he didn’t have answers now, he was going to and when he did, he was going to start his life over.


	14. Chapter 14

The alarms went off around two in the morning. The whole facility was put on high alert. Zorba had some how escaped the cage. The alarm should have gone off when it first got out, but it didn’t. The later review of the security camera showed why. If it had broken free, the alarms would have worked as normal. However, Zorba didn’t break free. The frog monster used it’s tongue to reach through one of the air holes in the top and actually managed to press the keypad. 

No one believed for a second that it just somehow managed to press the right buttons on the first try. The creature knew what buttons to press. It knew the code. It had been unconscious when it was first brought in, so there was no way it could have seen the code then. They used a small chamber system to feed it. No one was allowed inside with it for any reason. 

That left two options for how it got out. Either someone gave it the code, which meant it could fully understand them. Or it somehow had a psychic connection with someone or something that knew the code.

There wasn’t time to figure it out though. 

Abe shot up from his bed at the sound of the alarm. He groaned a little as he rubbed his eyes. The sleeping pills helped him get to sleep and kept him asleep for at least eight hours. He didn’t feel weird when he woke up, but he did if he was woken up earlier than eight hours. 

He dressed slowly and grabbed his gun before stumbling out into the hallway. He saw Kate and called out to her, “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Frog got out. It laid a bunch of eggs in the gym shower and took out a new recruit in the library. We’ve got people looking at the cameras to figure out where it went. I’m covering this floor. Can you take the next one? We don’t have a clue where it went. All we know is that it hasn’t got out of here yet.”

Abe hesitated for a moment, “Next floor? Can’t you take it and I’ll take this one?”

“Get over it, Abe. All you have to do is poke your head into her room. You don’t even have to go in. Now go,” Kate wasn’t above pulling rank and bossing him or Johann around.

“Alright, alright. I’m going,” he took a breath as he jogged towards the stairs. 

Fontanne’s room was on the base floor and it was the largest floor of the building. There were already plenty of people searching, but he knew that Kate wouldn’t forgive him if he didn’t double check everything and Zorba ended up being there.

He kept his gun ready as he started his search. He heard the others talking about what the frog had done to the new recruit. Apparently killed him in the library and dragged his body into the gym shower and laid it’s eggs right in the body. From what they had seen before, the creatures had never laid eggs that way before. It was usually just in moist places and in corners. It was like Zorba had deliberately done this to shock them.

“Abe!”

He rushed out of one of the rooms and saw a small grouping of agents around the door to Fontanne’s room, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s in there!” 

Of course it was, because that was his luck. Abe didn’t hesitate for a moment though. Whatever his issues were, that didn’t matter right now. A dangerous creature was on the loose and he knew for a fact that it was more able bodied than Fontanne was. All it had to do was drag her out of the water, “Go help with the clean up. I’ll handle this. Let Kate and Johann know.”

Most of the younger agents hadn’t fought any frogs yet. He wasn’t about to send any of them in there. He could handle one on his own. Once he was sure the other agents were out of harms way if it decided to run, he slowly opened the door and looked inside. It was dark, but he felt a sudden sense of rage at what he saw. 

Fontanne’s tank was a little larger than the one he had back at the old facility. It had soft lighting around the bottom, but most of the bulbs were shattered at the moment. What angered him was seeing the Zorba atop the tank. It’s long tongue was in the water and wrapped around Anne’s throat, cutting off her gill movements. She was thrashing around and clawing at it’s tongue. The water was mixed with both her blood and the frog’s blood. 

That wasn’t the only thing that angered him. Abe knew perfectly well that it could have easily fought her better if it was in the water with her. It was prevented from getting in the water by a grating going across the top of the tank. There were several large locks securing it down so that neither Anne, nor Zorba could get it open. The Bureau was keeping her trapped in there, despite the fact that she couldn’t just walk out. 

Abe growled lowly before charging towards tank. He reached up and grabbed the frog. It was startled and fell back, but it’s tongue didn’t release from Anne’s throat. She continued to thrash as she was dragged up the grates as Zorba fell back from the tank. There wasn’t even enough room for her head to fully surface between the water surface and the grate. Her webbed and clawed fingers grasped and pushed at the bars that trapped her in the water. The tongue tightened and her tail thrashed violently. Crashing into the sides of the tank.

“Let go of her!” he growled as he wrapped an arm around the creature’s throat and pulled hard. His free hand grasped at his gun as he raised it to the creature’s head, “I know you can understand me. Let her go and get back in your cage.”

It didn’t let up. Abraham knew better than to think that the creature had any sense of self preservation. It had laid its eggs, it had fed, and now it’s life’s purpose was over. It had no care whether it lived or died. Abe didn’t want to kill it. He knew he should take it alive, but he also knew that doing that would mean Anne’s death. Already, she’d stopped struggling. Her body was floating limply in the water now. It’s tongue still wrapped tight around her throat.

Abe knew what he had to do. He pulled the trigger and it’s body relaxed as it’s head splattered against the tank and floor. It’s tongue let her go and she floated to the bottom of the tank. He let the dead body fall to the floor as he climbed up the ladder to the top of the tank. He pulled at the grating, but it wouldn’t budge a bit.

He grabbed the radio at his waist and shouted into it, “Someone get in here and open this damn tank now!” he refused to wait for anyone though. He aimed his gun at the padlocks nearest the ladder and ignored how dangerous it was to do. He shot and winced a little. He didn’t stop though till all the locks in his way were blown off. 

He could hear Kate shouting behind him. He didn’t know how long she’d been there, but he started tugging at the grate again till it moved enough for him to climb in. Abe dropped into the water and went to Anne immediately. He could taste the blood in the water. It was sour. It wasn’t till he got his arms around her that he realized that the room light had been turned on.

Abe was relieved to see her gills moving. It was slow, but it was there. She was still alive. It was a good thing that Zorba couldn’t get inside the tank. If it had, she would have likely been killed before he even got in the room. He held her close and stroked the small fin on her back as he looked around the room and tank. He hadn’t been in here once since the move. 

The state of the room and tank brought back his anger. The room was bare with the exception of a desk that the researchers used when watching her. It was grey and cold. There was nothing in it for her to look at. That meant that whenever she was alone, she was left to just sit in her tank with her thoughts. He knew not many came in here other than to gawk at the mermaid. That didn’t happen near as often as it had at first. Kate was right. She was utterly alone. Especially in a room like this. Even the tank was plain.

Even though it was larger than his old one, it had none of the features of the old one. It was practically a goldfish bowl. The water was chill and the salt content was lower than it should have been. There was no filtering system in place to keep the water flowing and clean. It wasn’t like she could clean it herself. He knew that the lower salt content was the reason for the small sores she had on her body, but overall, she looked thinner too. 

“Abe! Abe! Is she alright?!” 

He looked up to see Kate hovering over the opening he’d made and shouting into the water. He narrowed his eyes at her and gently propped Anne up in one of the corners of the tank before swimming back up to the top. There were already other agents cleaning up the mess in the room, “She’ll live. What’s the meaning of this?” he motioned to the grate and the room.

“W-what?”she climbed down the ladder and Johann entered the room.

“Johann, did you know about this?” he snapped as he climbed down after her.

“Know about what?”

“This!” he motioned around the room again.

“It is a lab room, Abraham,” the ectoplasmic man responded.

“No! It’s her room! It’s not a lab! She is not a lab animal! You can’t treat her like that,” he pointed to the dead frog monster, “She’s not some kind of goldfish!”

Kate reached out and tried to touch his arm, “Abe…” but he shoved her hand away, “Abe, we didn’t know how to handle her. You’re the only one that knows anything about her. Everytime we tried to bring something in here for her, she spat water at it. She bit one of the doctors. She nearly tore the the arm off another one. Manning said if we didn’t put the grate on, that he was going to send her to the Canadian facility. We had no choice.”

“The water is wrong. It’s too cold in here. Is she even being fed the right food?! She needs visual stimulation. She needs socialization.”

“And how are we supposed to know that, Abe?”

“What?” he snapped.

Johann stepped forward this time, “Abraham, you are the only one that knows what sort of things she needs. We tried to get you to help set this up for her, but you wouldn’t. We do not know anything about her or her needs. We have been doing our best for her. We have even been giving her the same fish you were, but she will not eat them.”

“You’ve been in such a funk lately, Abe. We tried everything we could to help you get out of it and get you in here. We don’t know what’s going on with you or her. Fact of the matter is that we had no choice. You may not see her as a dangerous creature, but she is. Just like you are, just like Hellboy is, just like Liz is, and just like Johann is. There is no changing that. All of you have the ability to do amazing and destructive things. The difference is that she really was hurting people. Unlike the rest of you, she has been living in the wild for a very long time. She’s probably used to fighting a lot to survive. You’re the only one that had any sort of a connection with her. If you’re not in here helping us with her, she’s going to continue doing this. I told you before, she’s better off going back to the ocean or going to the other facility if you’re not going to help with her.”

Abe didn’t know what to say. He felt angry at the way she was being kept. He felt angry at the way Kate and Johann were speaking to him. He felt angry at himself. He felt angry at everything. He didn’t want to tell them that they were right, but he didn’t want to tell them that they were wrong either.

He turned his dark eyes back to the tank and watched her. Her gills were moving better now. He knew she’d put up as much a fight as she could. To survive for almost a hundred and sixty years in the ocean, he knew she could fight and survive. If that frog could have got into the tank, he was sure it would have killed her, but she would have tore it to pieces while it did it. Right now, she was in a new world. One that wasn’t suited for her. She had a new fight and she couldn’t do it alone.

He remembered the their first, though short, talk when they’d shared the history of the temple. She had clasped his hand and said _“Together.”_

“She’ll need to be taken to my room and put in the iso tank. Her tank needs to be emptied, cleaned, and refilled. We need a filtration system put in. After we get that cleaned up,” he pointed to the frog and the shattered lights, “I want LED lights run along the bottom. They’re safer than bulbs. For the main lights, is there any way we can rig up a remote for them? That way it can hang off the side of the tank and she can control the lights if she wants to.”

Kate smiled, “Of course. That shouldn’t be hard to do at all. If not, we can always go with a clapper,” she chuckled a little.

“She is French. The room should have some sort of French style decoration, no?” Johann asked. There weren’t many residents of the facility that stayed there year round, so the few that did got their own rooms and tended to personalize. Kate’s room was filled with books and artifacts, she was prone to ordering things online. Johann’s room was more simple since he didn’t actually need anything. He had a bed, but didn’t sleep. He too had a lot of books, but most of them were in German. As a permanent resident, Fontanne deserved the same as them.

Abe felt his anger slowly fading. His friends were really trying to help him. He knew they had been trying to do that all along, but it was easier to accept now that he was admitting to himself that he needed to do this, “I think she’d like that.”

“Last time I was in France, all the hotel beds had these big headboards with a canopy draping tacked up to the wall. I bet if we have the tank moved back against the wall we can put one of those up behind it,” Kate added in, “The doctors are still going to want to study her, but she should still reserve the right to be left alone if she doesn’t want them bothering her that day. I bet we can use the money that we wouldn’t spend on a bed or bookshelves to have one of those fish tank caves made for her size and put in. That way she can have her own private little space.”

The fish man didn’t know what to say. It sounded great. Better than he was given when he was first at the Bureau. Anne deserved better than he had. Even as the anger faded, he felt a new sense of guilt. It wouldn’t have got to this point if he hadn’t avoided her in the first place. Then again, the grate had probably saved her life, “There should be some kind of top to the tank that she can control from the inside. Just in case,” after all, now they had ten times the amount of eggs they had before. If they started hatching, Abe wanted to be sure she’d be safe if one got out again.

“Agreed,” Johann said with a nod to his glass head, “She’s fragile right now, so it would not be advisable to try moving her tonight.”

“No…I’ll stay with her tonight,” Abe said lightly.

“We’ll clean up here. Why don’t you climb back in there with her and keep an eye on her?” Kate said with a smile before ordering several of the other agents to pick up the pace on the cleaning.

Abraham nodded and climbed his way back into the tank. He swam down and scooped Anne’s body up in his arms. He held her close and blocked out the sounds of the people cleaning. It didn’t matter to him if they saw him holding her so intimately. He felt responsible for what had happened in some way. If he had been paying more attention to her, he would have likely already been in here when Zorba came in.

For the first time since he came back from Little Port, Abe was able to sleep without the use of a sleeping pill and without nightmare.


End file.
